OLITICAL  IDEAS 
&  PERSONS 


.  .    ::\  v-    :.  EY 


SOME    POLITICAL    IDEAS 
AND   PERSONS 


BY  THE    SAME   AUTHOR 

STUDIES    IN    SOME     FAMOUS     LETTERS 

[Burleigh]. 

AN    ANTHOLOGY  OF    ENGLISH    ELEGIES 
[John  Lane]. 

THE     POETICAL    WORKS    OF     WILLIAM 

COWPER.     Edited  with  an  Introduction  and 

Notes  [Methuen  &  Co.,  Ltd.]. 
THE  CLAIMS  OF    FRENCH   POETRY 

[Constable  &  Co.]. 

POETS  AND   POETRY  [Clarendon  Press]. 
DR.  JOHNSON  AND    HIS   CIRCLE. 

Home  University  Library  [Williams  &  Norgate]. 
MILTON. 

Home  University  Library  [Williams  &  Norgate]. 
A  DAY  BOOK  OF  LANDOR  [Oxf.  Univ.  Press]. 


SOME    POLITICAL 
IDEAS  AND  PERSONS 


BY  JOHN   BAILEY 

VUTHOK    OF    "DR.    JOHNSON    AND    HIS  CIRCLE,"    BTC. 


NEW   YORK 

E.   P.    DUTTON  AND   COMPANY 
1922 


TO 
MY   WIFE 


PREFACE 

ALL  but  the  first  of  these  articles  appeared 
originally  in  the  Literary  Supplement  of  The 
Times,  and  I  am  indebted  to  the  proprietors  of 
that  journal  for  permission  to  reprint  them 
The  essay  on  Queen  Victoria,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  one  or  two  paragraphs,  appears  now 
for  the  first  time.  Except  for  a  very  few 
corrections  and  the  addition  of  one  or  two 
notes,  the  reprinted  articles  appear  as  originally 
published.  No  attempt  has  been  made  to 
rewrite  them  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events. 

J.  B. 

Sept.  20,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  QUEEN  VICTORIA i 

II.  THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF  DISRAELI,  1837-46    .  45 

III.  THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF  DISRAELI,  1846-55  .  65 

IV.  THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF  DISRAELI,  1855-68  .  79 
V.  THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF  DISRAELI,  1868-81  .  94 

VI.     HENRY  Fox 119 

VII.    LORD  GREY 133 

VIII.  LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL         .        .        .     148 

IX.  OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST       ....     163 

X.  THEN  AND  Now    .        .        ...        .        .     177 

XI.    POLITICAL  PROPHECIES 192 

XII.  NATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL    .        .        .     204 

XIII.  OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR   .        .        .        .216 

XIV.  CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE        .         .        .        .229 
INDEX 246 


SOME  POLITICAL 

IDEAS  AND  PERSONS 

i 

QUEEN  VICTORIA 

IT  is  now  over  twenty  years  since  Queen  Victoria 
died.  I  remember  hearing  it  remarked  by  a  wise 
man,  who  did  not  himself  live  beyond  middle  age, 
that  the  newspapers  are  entirely  written  for  the 
young  and  always  explain  allusions  to  events  or 
persons  whose  place  in  history  puts  them  even 
a  few  years  behind  the  birth  of  the  actual  rising 
generation.  Well,  none  of  the  young  to-day, 
no  one  under  twenty-five,  remembers  the  great 
Queen  who  seemed  to  their  fathers  and  grand- 
fathers an  eternal  institution.  But  she  is  the  one 
exception  to  my  wise  man's  rule.  No  one 
thinks  of  explaining  the  Queen.  So  great  is 
monarchy  even  in  a  democratic  age  ;  so  great, 
we  may  add,  is  mere  continuance  in  a  world  of 
change.  The  most  famous  and  popular  of  her 
Ministers  were  disliked  or  distrusted  by  one-half 
or  one-third  of  the  nation  while  they  were  alive  ; 
and  most  of  them  were  quickly  forgotten  after 
their  deaths.  The  Queen  was  too  evidently 
honest  to  be  distrusted  ;  and  as  for  dislike,  she 


2  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

was  too  permanent  and  inevitable,  too  high  and 
remote,  for  anything  of  that  kind.  You  do  not 
dislike  the  sun  even  when  he  refuses  to  shine. 
The  Queen  was  always  there  even  when  hidden 
by  the  distant  mists  of  Balmoral.  Others  came 
and  went  on  the  great  stage.  She  was  always  on 
it,  on  its  throne,  the  central  figure.  None  of  the 
four  statesmen  who  occupied  it  longest  in  her 
reign,  neither  Palmerston,  nor  Russell,  nor 
Disraeli,  nor  even  Gladstone,  was  quite  in  its 
centre  by  her  side  for  so  much  as  thirty  years. 
She  was  there  for  sixty-three  years,  like  a  divine 
and  immovable  statue  on  a  pedestal :  like  and 
yet  so  unlike  ;  for  the  goddess  was  always  very 
human  and  could  visibly  frown  and  smile. 
When  her  figure  was  at  last  removed  the  stage 
was  clear  for  a  new  play.  With  her  death 
another  age  and  another  world  began. 

The  reaction  was  naturally  a  sharp  one,  some- 
thing like  that  which  occurred  in  France  after  the 
end  of  the  still  longer  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  The 
Court  became  lively  and  amused  itself  and 
others  ;  the  political  world  became  disturbed 
and  even,  after  a  little  while,  what  the  Queen 
would  certainly  have  called  revolutionary  ;  art 
went  in  for  strange  experiments  ;  good  women 
behaved  like  criminal  lunatics  ;  good  men,  who 
themselves  lived  the  most  orderly  and  common- 
place lives,  declared  that  religion  consisted  in 
"  living  dangerously  "  ;  in  fact,  all  those  follies 
occurred  which  invariably  occur  when  good 
sense  and  good  conduct  have  been  too  long  and 
too  insolently  self-complacent.  And  then  came 


THE  VICTORIAN  ERA  3 

the  war :  and  no  one  can  deny  that  since  1914 
we  have,  whether  in  war  or  peace,  lived  danger- 
ously enough  to  satisfy  the  most  exacting  taste. 
The  result  is  that  it  already  seems  a  long  time 
since  the  Queen  died,  and  the  reaction  against 
her  outlook  and  the  outlook  and  even  the  achieve- 
ments of  her  age  is  probably  now  at  its  height. 
Confident  and  not  entirely  uneducated  young 
persons  may  be  heard  discussing  the  Victorian 
era  as  mediocre,  dull,  and  unimportant.  Of 
course  any  one  who  knows  enough  of  history, 
and  in  particular  of  English  history,  to  compare 
one  period  with  another,  knows  that  that  is 
simply  absurd.  The  age  of  Victoria  was  the  age 
of  a  Queen  who  practised  social  life  as  little  as 
she  could  during  most  of  her  eighty-two  years 
(during  all,  perhaps,  except  the  first  three  or 
four  of  her  reign),  and  of  a  middle  class  which 
never  learnt  to  practise  it  at  all ;  so  it  was  socially 
rather  dull.  But  in  no  other  respect  was  it  even 
dull,  still  less  mediocre  or  unimportant.  On  the 
contrary,  if  the  hundred  years  that  passed  be- 
tween 1790  and  1890  were  not  only  by  far  the 
most  successful  in  our  history,  but  also  probably 
the  greatest,  the  fifty  of  them  that  belonged  to 
Victoria  are  at  least  as  great  as  those  that  belonged 
to  her  grandfather  and  uncles.  Only  in  poetry 
and  war  has  the  earlier  half-century  a  decided 
advantage,  and  that  is  balanced  by  the  still  more 
decided  advantage  which  the  Victorian  period 
has  in  science. 

When  the  present  very  natural  reaction  has 
passed  away,  as  it  most  assuredly  will,  it  will  be 


4  QUEEN   VICTORIA 

seen  that  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  was  not 
only  more  prosperous  than  any  recorded  period 
of  equal  length  in  the  history  of  any  country,  but 
was  also  an  age  of  great  men  in  nearly  every 
field.  And  it  was  an  age  which  knew  how  to 
honour  their  greatness.  Where  are  the  statesmen 
to-day  whom  men  respect  as  their  grandfathers 
respected  Peel,  whom  men  worship  as  their 
fathers  worshipped  Gladstone,  to  whose  genius 
they  look  up  in  dazzled  wonder,  pride,  and 
delight  as  men  once  looked  up  to  the  mysterious 
figure  of  Disraeli  ?  And  the  same  contrast  may 
be  seen  in  other  fields.  Where  to-day  is  the 
writer  who  is  heard  and  reverenced  as  a  seer,  not 
by  the  readers  of  popular  newspapers,  but  by 
the  leaders  of  the  thought,  the  science,  the  art, 
the  public  life  of  the  nation — as  Tennyson  and 
George  Eliot,  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  were  heard 
and  reverenced  fifty  years  ago  ?  Where  are  the 
religious  leaders  who  to-day  stir  hearts  and 
minds  as  Newman  did  in  one  way  during  the 
reign  of  Victoria,  and  Maurice  and  Kingsley  in 
another,  Pusey  and  Liddon  in  yet  another,  to  say 
nothing  of  men  like  Spurgeon  and  obscurer 
teachers  of  obscurer  followers  ?  We  may  now 
see  the  limitations  of  these  men  as  clearly  as 
their  greatness.  But  the  man  who  sees  greatness 
is  himself  a  greater  man  than  the  man  who  merely 
sees  limitations.  And  the  followers  of  such  men 
as  these  were  by  no  means  all  fools.  Still  less 
were  they  fools  who  resorted  to  Carlyle  and 
Tennyson  and  George  Eliot  as  oracles  of  wisdom. 
On  the  contrary,  they  were  among  the  acutest 


OPTIMISM  AND   PESSIMISM         5 

intellects  and  noblest  characters  of  their  day. 
Where  to-day  are  the  successors  either  of  the 
oracles  or  of  the  pilgrims  ?  Evidently  there  is 
loss  somewhere.  Either  we  no  longer  have  the 
great  men  or  we  no  longer  have  the  will  or  power 
to  honour  greatness.  It  must  be  one  or  the 
other.  And  whichever  it  is,  it  is  clear  that  the 
Georgian  era  will  be  wise  to  give  itself  as  yet  no 
airs  when  talking  of  the  Victorian. 

But  all  this  is  a  digression.  My  present 
business  is  with  Victoria  herself,  and  no  one  will 
pretend  that  she  had  much  directly  to  do  with  the 
literary,  scientific,  or  religious  movements  of  the 
age  to  which  she  gives  her  name.  Still  she  does 
give  it ;  and  people  who  talk  about  her  generally 
express  opinions  about  her  time.  So  I  thought 
an  unrepentant  and  unashamed  Victorian  ought 
not  to  be  afraid  of  uttering  his.  I  am  no  pessi- 
mist ;  on  the  contrary,  I  have  sometimes  been 
accused  of  being  a  blind  optimist.  I  am  not  at  all 
prepared  to  accept  as  certainties,  far  less  as  gospel, 
all  the  gloomy  prophecies  of  such  men  as  my  friends 
Dean  Inge  and  Mr.  Bateson.*  I  comfort  my- 
self with  a  recollection  that  they  were  neither  of 
them  very  hopeful  about  winning  the  war  ;  and 
I  am  far  from  having  given  up  faith  in  the 
capacity  of  the  English  people  to  surprise  the 
pessimists  once  more  by  winning  the  peace  in 
the  same  slow  stubborn  way  in  which  they  won 
the  war. 

*  See"  Common  Sense  in  Racial  Problems,"  byW.  Bate- 
son,  M.A.,  F.R.S. ;  a  lecture  delivered  to  the  Eugenics 
Education  Society. 


6  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

Our  universal-suffrage  democracy  certainly 
has  its  grave  dangers  ;  and  if  it  will  not  steady  its 
emotions  and  listen  to  the  warning  voices  of  the 
historians  and  the  political  economists  and, 
perhaps  most  important  of  all,  the  biologists,  the 
merits  which  it  has  will  not  save  it,  and  the  ship 
of  democracy,  which  is  not  at  all  necessarily  the 
same  thing  as  the  ship  of  England,  will  run  upon 
the  rocks  and  break  up.  But  democracy  in  this 
country  is  young  yet,  and  that  tough  and  ancient 
thing  English  common  sense  is  working  upon  it, 
and  may  very  well  prune  it  of  its  follies  as  it 
pruned  monarchy  and  aristocracy.  Its  youth, 
too,  will  suffice,  at  least  for  the  present,  as  an 
excuse  for  its  mediocrity..  The  seers  and  the 
geniuses  have  generally  appeared  after,  not 
during,  the  times  of  novelty,  war,  and  confusion. 
And  when  we  have  settled  down,  our  young 
democracy,  our  Georgian  or  post-Georgian  age, 
may  produce  its  sages  and  seers  and  master  poets 
as  well  as  another.  Only  so  long  as  it  has  not 
done  so  it  had  better  not  throw  stones  at  its 
predecessor  which  did. 

Queen  Victoria  would  certainly  have  been 
amazed  at  its  daring  to  do  so.  She  was  accus- 
tomed to  keep  her  grandchildren,  even  the 
conceited  William,  in  very  strict  awe  of  her.  She 
had  contemplated  all  the  great  doings  of  her  age, 
and  on  the  whole  had  blessed  them  all  and 
extended  her  protecting  and  consecrating  aegis 
over  them.  She  was  quite  conscious  that  they 
were  a  part  of  her  glory,  not  one  atom  of  which 
would  she  for  one  moment  surrender.  But  she 


SOVEREIGNS  7 

had  nothing  whatever  directly  to  do  with  most 
of  them.  She  was  no  philosopher  or  friend  of 
philosophers  like  her  ancestresses  Sophia  and 
Caroline ;  no  theologian  like  James  I.  or 
Henry  VIII.  ;  no  fine  judge  of  art  like  Charles  I. ; 
no  ready  dabbler  in  science,  letters,  and  wit,  like 
Charles  II.  She  was  only  two  things,  a  woman 
and  a  Queen  ;  but  in  those  two  she  was  remark- 
able enough. 

There  is  no  class  of  men  who  are  so  seldom 
fairly  judged  as  sovereigns.  During  his  life- 
time a  king's  intellect  and  character  are  usually 
much  over-praised  by  people  who  do  not  believe 
what  they  say.  After  his  death  they  are  apt  to 
be  equally  underrated  by  people  who  do.  The 
reason  of  the  second  fact,  though  commonly  un- 
perceived,  is  really  not  much  less  obvious  than 
that  of  the  first.  Those  who,  after  a  king's  death 
or  even  during  his  life,  are  under  no  moral 
temptation  to  flatter  him  are  almost  always  under 
an  intellectual  temptation  to  belittle  him.  They 
are  apt  to  become  the  victims  of  a  fallacy.  They 
confuse  a  king  with  a  statesman,  a  general,  a 
writer  of  a  book.  Each  of  these  is  visited  with 
just  contempt  if  he  fails  in  a  function  which  he 
need  never  have  accepted.  He  has  cast  himself 
for  the  chief  part,  proves  fit  only  for  that  of 
walking  gentleman,  and  cannot  complain  if  he 
is  found  ridiculous.  But  the  position  of  a 
hereditary  king  is  quite  different  to  this.  He  is, 
by  the  laws  of  nature,  commonly  an  average 
man  ;  but  by  the  laws  of  his  country  he  is  called 
upon  to  do  what  cannot  be  perfectly  done  by  an 


8  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

average  man.  There  are  very  good  reasons  for 
this  apparent  anomaly.  Monarchy  is  on  the 
whole  such  a  useful  institution,  and  it  is  on  the 
whole  so  important  that  there  should  be  no 
doubt  as  to  who  the  monarch  is  or  is  to  be  that 
it  is  found  worth  while  to  disregard  the  fact  that 
some  monarchs  will  be  knaves  or  fools,  and  only 
a  few  will  prove  ideal  occupants  of  the  throne. 
But  the  result  is  a  confusion  of  thought  which 
is  very  hard  on  monarchs.  The  king  is  judged 
not  by  the  average  standard  which  may  fairly  be 
demanded  of  him,  but  by  the  ideal  of  an  office 
which  he  could  not  escape.  George  III.  is 
scorned  for  not  having  understood  the  Catholic 
question  so  well  as  Pitt,  and  Victoria  for  having 
been  slower  than  Russell  or  Palmerston  to 
catch  the  idea  of  Italian  unity.  The  truth  is,  of 
course,  that  she  could  not  fairly  be  expected  to 
be  anything  else.  She  is  all  through  her  life  an 
ordinary  woman  placed  in  a  very  exceptional 
position  ;  and  the  interest  of  studying  her  lies 
largely  in  watching  the  play  and  counterplay  of 
the  two — the  ordinary  acting  on  the  exceptional 
and  the  exceptional  on  the  ordinary,  the  Queen 
dominating  the  woman,  and  then  again  the 
woman  appearing  through  the  Queen. 

What  do  we  think  of  her  now  as  we  begin  to 
get  far  enough  away  to  see  her  as  she  actually 
was  ?  The  protecting  aureole  of  royalty  is  now 
fast  fading,  and  making  it  possible  for  us  to  see 
the  woman  apart  from  the  Queen.  Or  at  least 
making  it  possible  to  try,  and  perhaps  partly  to 
succeed.  To  separate  them  altogether  is  im- 


KINGS,  PRIESTS  AND  OTHERS     9 

possible  in  the  case  of  a  woman  who  can  scarcely 
ever,  even  for  a  moment,  have  thought  of  herself 
quite  apart  from  her  great  office,  from  the  day 
that  she  first  knew  she  was  to  hold  it.  Monarchy 
is  like  the  priesthood  :  he  who  has  been  once 
invested  with  it  never  puts  it  off.  A  lawyer  or 
a  soldier  can  think  of  himself  as  a  mere  man  ; 
not  so  a  priest  and  not  so  a  king.  For  good  or 
for  evil  neither  of  them  is  ever  a  mere  man  again. 
And  so  with  Queen  Victoria.  We  have  had  a 
great  deal  published  about  her  ;  much  of  it 
written  by  her  own  hand — her  own  letters  and 
journals.  Some  of  these  she  herself  gave  to 
the  public  in  her  lifetime  ;  others  have  been 
published  since  her  death.  They  are  the  capital 
documents,  of  course  ;  not  only  because,  by 
universal  admission,  she  was  the  most  rigidly 
truthful  of  human  beings,  but  also  because  letters 
and  journals  almost  invariably  betray  their 
writer's  character  even  when  he  most  means 
them  to  conceal  it.  Often  indeed  what  they 
betray  is  a  virtue  or  a  vice,  or  many  of  either,  of 
which  the  writer  is  himself  quite  unconscious. 
Neither  Chesterfield  in  his  way  nor  Fitzgerald  in 
his  would  have  guessed  at  all  the  impression  the 
publication  of  their  letters  would  make  on 
posterity.  And  even  Pope  who  posed  for 
posterity,  who  forged  and  falsified  to  make  his 
letters  carry  him  down  to  future  generations  as  a 
pattern  of  tenderness,  unworldliness,  and  universal 
benevolence,  even  Pope  the  consummate  artist, 
the  untiring  labourer,  has  wasted  his  skill  and 
pains.  He  has  been  found  out.  About  Queen 


io  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

Victoria  there  is  nothing  to  find  out,  nothing  at 
any  rate  to  unmask.  Everywhere  the  picture 
she  gives  of  herself  is  one  of  transparent  truth,  or 
at  least  of  transparent  sincerity.  She  describes 
herself,  her  actions,  her  motives,  her  feelings, 
simply  and  sincerely,  as  what  she  honestly 
believed  them  to  be.  And  what  she  wished  to 
be  and  thought  she  was  is  with  her  even  more 
than  with  everybody  else  a  guide  and  index  to 
what  she  was  in  reality.  Whatever  is  to  be 
written  about  her,  her  own  writings  must  in 
future  always  be  the  bedrock  on  which  it  is 
built.  Many  people,  of  course,  have  already 
discussed  and  described  her  :  some  of  them,  like 
the  diarists  Creevey  and  Greville,  and  Sarah 
Lady  Lyttelton,  wrote  long  before  her  letters 
were  published ;  others  like  Sir  Sidney  Lee, 
Lord  Esher,  and  now  Mr.  Lytton  Strachey,  with 
the  full  advantage  of  them :  and  those  who  are 
looking  for  the  woman  apart  from  the  Queen 
must  go  rather  to  what  has  been  written  about 
her  than  to  her  published  letters.  The  journals, 
it  is  true,  give  the  girl  and  the  woman.  But  the 
letters  given  to  the  public  are  almost  entirely  the 
composition  of  the  Queen.  What  we  get  in 
them  is  her  political  rather  than  her  private 
character.  There  are  no  letters  to  her  mother, 
none  to  her  children,  and  hardly  any  to  anybody 
that  are  not  almost  entirely  taken  up  with  public 
affairs.  The  three  volumes  are  rather  a  mass  of 
material  for  the  future  historian  of  the  reign  than 
a  help  to  the  personal  biographer  of  the  child, 
girl,  woman,  daughter,  wife,  mother,  friend  who 


MR.   LYTTON   STRACHEY          11 

had  her  private  likes  and  dislikes,  joys  and 
sorrows,  good  points  and  bad,  like  other  human 
beings. 

The  best  book  written  about  her  is  certainly 
the  last,  Mr.  Strachey's.  To  one  reader  at  any 
rate  it  was  rather  a  surprise  to  find  it  so.  I  know 
three  books  of  Mr.  Strachey's.  The  first  was  a 
short  book  on  French  poetry,  of  which  it  is 
scarcely  going  too  far  to  say  that  it  is,  in  the 
modest  way  of  such  books,  a  little  masterpiece. 
But  of  course  a  book  of  that  sort  appealed  only 
to  a  limited  public.  Then  some  years  later 
came  the  clever,  ill-natured,  very  limited, 
strangely  overpraised,  volume  called  "  Eminent 
Victorians."  It  was  amusing,  of  course  ;  about 
as  amusing  as  Voltaire  on  Joan  of  Arc,  or  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw  on  Shakespeare ;  full  of  that 
blind  and  ugly  cleverness  which  never  knows 
when  it  is  handling  something  too  great  for  it, 
and  is  always  cutting  capers  when  it  had  better 
be  on  its  knees.  And  then  this  volume  was 
announced,  and  one  could  not  but  have  one's 
fears.  But  things  have  turned  out  better  than 
might  have  been  expected.  Queen  Victoria  has 
won  the  last  and  not  the  least  of  her  victories. 
No  one  who  found  himself  in  that  august 
presence  ever  had  the  courage  to  take  a  liberty 
with  her  in  her  lifetime.  And  even  her  shade 
has  had  its  effect  on  Mr.  Strachey.  He  who 
almost  certainly  came  to  scoff  has  on  the  whole 
remained  to  pray.  His  book  is  this  time 
not  merely  brilliant  and  amusing;  it  is  also 
understanding,  sympathetic,  and  just.  Of  course 


12  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

he  treats  Victoria  with  perfect  freedom,  humour, 
and  detachment :  the  time  for  that  had  plainly 
come  ;  the  time,  and  the  man.  And  of  course 
he  delights  himself  and  us  by  the  cool  wit  and 
quiet  ironies  with  which  he  handles  the  Queen's 
limitations  and  domesticities.  But  it  is  not  his 
laugh  that  has  the  final  word.  Both  the  woman 
and  the  Queen  silence  the  satirist  in  the  end. 
No  one  has  paid  more  striking  tribute  to  Victoria's 
essential  goodness  than  this  professional  scoffer. 
Indeed,  of  course  it  is  largely  because  he  is 
himself  that  his  tribute  is  so  striking.  He  says 
at  the  beginning  that  her  childish  words  "  I  will 
be  good  "  were  "  more  than  a  conventional 
protestation  "  ;  they  were  "  an  instinctive  sum- 
mary of  the  dominating  qualities  of  a  life."  And 
what  he  says  at  the  end  is  only  the  same  thing  in 
other  words.  He  is  speaking  of  the  feeling  her 
people  had  about  her.  There  was  her  vitality. 
"  She  had  reigned  for  sixty  years  and  she  was 
not  out."  But  that  was  far  from  all  they  felt 
about  her.  "  She  was  a  character."  "  Goodness 
they  prized  above  every  other  human  quality  ; 
and  Victoria,  who,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  had  said 
she  would  be  good,  had  kept  her  word.  Duty, 
conscience,  morality — yes  !  in  the  light  of  those 
high  beacons  the  Queen  had  always  lived.  She 
had  passed  her  days  in  work  and  not  in  pleasure — 
in  public  responsibilities  and  family  cares."  And, 
as  he  adds,  a  character  is  never  a  mere  bundle  of 
qualities ;  there  is  always  some  one  element 
which  is  the  fundamental  thing  common  to  them 
all  and  holding  them  all  together.  As  to  what 


THE  QUEEN'S  GOODNESS         13 

that  was  in  Victoria  he  says  there  can  be  no 
doubt :  it  was  "  a  peculiar  sincerity."  All  sorts 
of  one-sidedness  and  lack  of  the  sense  of  proportion 
are  the  natural  material  of  humour,  and  of  course 
Mr.  Strachey  does  not  throw  away  the  oppor- 
tunities given  him  by  the  very  virtues  of  the 
Queen  ;  in  fact,  they  provide  some  of  his  most 
entertaining  pages.  But  the  present  point  is 
that  as  in  her  life  so  after  her  death  her  virtues 
get  the  last  word.  She  was  a  good  woman 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  her  story  ;  and 
nobody,  not  even  people  who  find  the  amusing 
rarer  and  pleasanter  than  the  good,  escapes  the 
impression  of  her  goodness.  Only  a  fool  could 
be  blind  to  it ;  only  a  Mephistopheles  could 
remain  altogether  untouched  by  it.  And  a 
biographer  who  failed  to  insist  upon  it  would  be 
like  a  portrait  painter  who  left  out  the  one 
feature  in  his  sitter's  face  by  which,  before  all 
others,  it  would  always  be  remembered  by  all 
who  knew  him. 

Perhaps  there  is  only  one  suggestion  in 
Mr.  Strachey's  portrait  which  invites  criticism. 
He  has  a  notion  that,  in  the  genial  society  of 
Melbourne,  the  prim  pupil  of  the  Baroness 
Lehzen  was  catching  a  kind  of  throwback  to  the 
eighteenth  century.  He  admits  that  Melbourne's 
instructions  went  all  the  other  way.  But  still 
Melbourne  was  a  survivor  of  that  old  world  and 
showed  its  qualities  at  their  very  best.  And  she 
was  just  emancipated  from  the  confinement  of  a 
schoolroom  and  suddenly  introduced  to  the 
splendour  of  palaces,  to  almost  unbounded 


14  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

wealth,  to  universal  deference,  to  the  enjoyment 
of  all  that  youth  and  health  offer  so  lavishly  and 
so  dangerously  when,  as  in  her  case,  they  are  not 
reined  in  by  either  of  their  usual  bridles  and  go 
as  they  please  with  no  parents  to  forbid  them 
and  no  poverty  to  deny.  But  all  this  seems 
purely  fanciful.  Sincerity  is  unity  in  utterance. 
And  the  sincerity  of  Victoria's  speech  is  not 
more  conspicuous  than  the  unity  of  her  life. 
The  girl  of  nineteen  who  met  her  Council  on 
the  morning  of  her  accession  with  that  perfect 
coolness  and  dignity ;  who  immediately,  on  that 
day,  had  her  bed  moved  out  of  her  mother's 
room ;  who  instantly,  that  very  morning,  the 
moment  the  great  men  left  her,  told  her  mother 
that  she  would  never  again  sit  down  to  a  meal 
with  Sir  John  Conroy,  and  in  consequence  had 
all  her  meals  that  day  alone  (for  I  believe  Mr. 
Strachey  is  mistaken  in  saying  that  Stockmar 
breakfasted  with  her  ;  he  only  came  in  while 
she  was  at  breakfast) ;  such  a  girl  as  this  clearly 
had  innate  in  her  one  of  the  strongest  of  characters 
and  one  of  the  most  indomitable  of  wills.  From 
the  first  she  evidently  liked  work,  liked  taking 
it  seriously  and  being  taken  seriously  herself. 
She  had  been  carefully  and  strictly  brought  up, 
and  a  strict  bringing  up  seems  to  be  a  gamble : 
it  either  makes  a  child  serious  for  life,  or  it 
makes  him  all  his  life  a  hater  of  seriousness  in  all 
its  forms.  With  the  Queen  it  plainly  had  the 
first  result.  As  at  the  end  of  her  life  she  thought 
all  the  world,  that  is  the  world  of  Mayfair  and 
the  country  houses,  "  a  little  mad,"  so  at  the 


THE  QUEEN  AND  HER  UNCLES    15 

beginning  she  had  an  innate  contempt  and  dislike 
of  idle  people,  especially  if  they  were  also  dis- 
reputable. She  was  quite  conscious  of  herself 
as  the  embodiment  of  a  reaction  against  the 
undignified  and  immoral  courts  of  her  uncles. 
To  their  eighteenth  century,  which  was  far  from 
the  whole  of  that  interesting  period,  to  the 
eighteenth  century  of  the  young  Charles  Fox  and 
the  old  Dukes  of  Queensberry  and  Norfolk,  of 
the  Brighton  Pavilion,  Carlton  House,  and  other 
flamboyancies,  I  do  not  believe  that  she  was  ever 
for  one  moment  in  danger  of  "  looking  back  "  or 
"  wavering."  She  and  all  that  were  always 
from  first  to  last  as  opposite  to  each  other  as  the 
two  Poles.  Her  danger  was  in  fact  just  the 
contrary  of  that  to  which  her  uncles  and  the  men 
and  women  of  their  world  succumbed.  People 
thought  her,  as  Melbourne  plainly  told  her, 
"  lofty,  high,  stern,  and  decided,"  but  "  that's 
much  better  than  that  you  should  be  thought 
familiar."  Nobody  ever  did  find  her  that.  She 
was  all  will  and  character  from  the  first,  with  a 
turn  for  being  obstinate  and  severe.  Her  uncles, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  all  the  weakness  of 
epicureans,  and  their  lives  were  a  succession  of 
undignified,  disorderly,  and  half  involuntary 
concessions  to  the  momentary  demands  of  their 
senses. 

No  :  that  was  not  the  possible  development 
which  was  prevented  by  the  arrival  of  her 
husband  and  the  substitution  of  Peel  for  Mel- 
bourne. It  is  dangerous  work  guessing  at  the 
might-have-beens  of  personality.  But  if  one 


16  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

does  dare  to  make  such  guesses  mine  would  be 
of  a  different  sort.  No  moral  change  was 
within  the  limits  of  probability.  But  perhaps 
an  intellectual  change  was.  Is  it  not  possible 
that  if  things  could  have  continued  as  they  were 
between  1837  and  1840  her  whole  mind  and 
outlook  might  have  widened,  opened,  and 
expanded  ?  The  tendency  of  late  has  been,  I 
think,  to  underrate  her  natural  abilities.  She 
never  had  much  education  ;  all  she  was  taught 
was  some  religion,  a  very  little  history,  and  the 
usual  linguistic  and  aesthetic  accomplishments. 
Her  mother  spoke  of  her  as  a  child  as  possessing 
"  strength  of  intellect,"  and  though  mothers  in 
general  are  not  the  best  judges  in  such  cases,  the 
Duchess  may  well  have  been  not  far  wrong. 
But  a  child  who  till  the  day  of  her  Accession  never 
went  downstairs  without  some  one  holding  her 
hand,  was  not  given  much  chance  of  developing 
any  kind  of  strength  except  the  sense  of  duty. 
Then  came  the  Accession  and  those  significant, 
almost  formidable,  "  alones,"  underlined  or 
written  in  capital  letters — which  punctuate  the 
journal  of  the  day.  And  then  came  Melbourne, 
and  after  a  week  or  two  he  and  the  faithful 
Lehzen  divided  her  life.  But  Lehzen's  lessons 
were  schoolroom  lessons.  The  day  for  them 
was  over.  Melbourne  was  statesman,  scholar, 
and  man  of  the  world,  a  kind  of  Nestor  turned 
courtier  who  never  forgot  either  that  she  was  an 
inexperienced  girl,  or  that  she  was  a  Queen  and 
he  her  subject  and  servant.  And  he  was  friend 
and  almost  father  as  well  as  tutor :  how  delightful 


THE  QUEEN'S   INTELLECT         17 

this  new  way  of  going  to  school  must  have  been  ! 
How  delightful,  in  fact,  we  know  it  was.  But  that 
is  an  old  story.  The  present  point  is  not  its 
delightfulness  but  the  question  whether  all  we 
know  of  it  does  not  prove  the  Queen  to  have 
had  a  quicker  and  finer  intellect  than  has 
commonly  been  supposed.  Would  an  ordinary 
girl  have  hurried  to  write  down  all  the  interesting 
things  Melbourne  said  to  her  about  politics, 
history,  literature,  religion  ?  Could  an  ordinary 
girl  have  done  it  if  she  tried  ?  Ask  such  a  girl 
who  has  just  been  dining  with  a  party  of  dis- 
tinguished men,  where  there  has  been  striking 
talk,  to  write  down  what  was  said,  and  what 
sort  of  success  does  she  make  of  it  ?  Victoria, 
on  the  other  hand,  occasionally  does  her  Mel- 
bourne almost  as  well  as  Boswell  did  his  Johnson  ; 
and  only  fools  fancy  that  Boswell's  was  an  easy 
task  or  could  have  been  accomplished  by  a  fool. 
If  we  know  nothing  else  of  Melbourne,  this 
young  girl's  diary  would  be  enough  to  make  us 
realise  how  well  informed,  how  wise,  how 
humorous,  how  unexpected  his  conversation 
was.  She  gives  us  a  most  vivid  impression  of 
his  manner  ;  not  only  of  what  sort  of  things  he 
said,  but  of  the  way  he  had  of  saying  them.  How 
many  grown  women  or,  for  the  matter  of  that, 
grown  men  can  do  that  for  anybody  ?  Melbourne 
could  not  have  talked  as  he  did  to  a  slow  or 
stupid  girl ;  no  one  can  talk  well  except  to  an 
intelligent  listener.  He  thought  her  that,  and 
more  than  that ;  and  I  submit  that  we  who 
have  seen  her  diary  know  better  than  he  did 


i8  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

how  right  he  was.  For  the  truth  is  that  only 
a  rather  unusual  girl  would  have  listened  to 
or  remembered  such  talk,  or  could  have  repro- 
duced it  with  such  vivacity,  point,  and  evident 
truth.  One  illustration  of  what  I  mean  will 
suffice. 

"  I  asked  Lord  Melbourne  if  he  didn't  think 
Johnson's  poetry  very  hard  ;  he  said  he  did,  and 
that  Garrick  said,  '  Hang  it,  it's  as  hard  as 
Greek.'  His  prose  he  admires,  though  he  said 
pedantry  was  to  be  observed  throughout  it ;  and 
Lord  Melbourne  thinks  what  he  said  superior  to 
what  he  wrote.  In  spite  of  all  that  pedantry, 
Lord  Melbourne  said,  '  a  deep  feeling  and  a 
great  knowledge  of  human  nature  '  pervaded  all 
he  said  and  wrote."  Here  is  an  admirable, 
almost  complete,  criticism  of  Johnson  in  two  or 
three  sentences.  But  how  many  girls  of  nineteen 
would  have  cared  to  listen  to  it,  or,  if  they  had, 
would  have  wished  to  write  it  down,  or,  again  if 
they  had,  would  have  been  able  to  do  the  writing 
down  as  Victoria  has  done  it  ? 

So,  perhaps,  if  those  easy,  happy  years,  with 
that  very  human  old  tutor,  could  have  gone  on, 
she  might  have  opened  out  in  a  good  many 
directions  and  discovered  more  interesting  things 
in  the  world  than  she  was  in  fact  ever  to  dis- 
cover. But  Melbourne  left  her,  and  Albert 
came.  And  though  Albert  was  only  too  intel- 
lectual, his  was  not  an  inviting  or  expanding  or 
amusing  kind  of  intellect ;  and  he  liked  domi- 
nation and  rigidity,  not  the  free  play  of  the 
mind  which  was  Melbourne's  most  delightful 


THE  QUEEN'S   NARROWNESS       19 

characteristic ;  and  he  was  husband  and  soon  com- 
plete master,  and  the  little  mind,  which  might  so 
easily  have  grown  larger,  just  enclosed  itself  in 
his  in  a  way  that  it  never  could  have  enclosed 
itself  in  the  airy  spaces  of  Melbourne's  which 
had  no  prison  walls  of  any  kind  about  it,  for 
itself  or  others.  And  then  nine  children  came 
one  after  another  ;  and  though  children  are  far 
better  things  than  any  intellectual  adventures, 
they  have  to  be  paid  for  like  other  delights,  and 
their  price  is  commonly  a  domesticity  of  mind  as 
well  as  of  life.  And  so  the  scarcely  begun 
chapter  of  expansion  closed,  and  the  years  1841- 
1861  were  years  of  narrow  concentration  and 
blind,  humble,  loving  acceptance ;  and  after 
Albert's  death  the  acceptance  became  a  kind  of 
religion,  blinder  than  ever,  and  till  Disraeli 
came  Victoria  lived  in  the  past,  and  nothing 
interesting,  joyous,  or  amusing,  nothing  that  was 
in  any  way  expansive,  was  allowed  to  profane  its 
memories  or  interfere  with  the  duty  of  con- 
sistency, continuance,  and  consecration.  And 
when  Disraeli  came,  an  Oriental  Lord  Melbourne, 
even  more  amusing  and  quite  as  expansive,  it 
was  too  late.  The  young  girl  had  become  a 
venerable  and  unchangeable  institution,  and  the 
jewelled  epigrams  and  audacities  of  a  favourite 
servant,  however  daring  and  brilliant,  could  no 
longer  do  for  her  what  might  perhaps  once  have 
been  done  by  the  lene  tormentum  of  the 
mind  of  her  first  Prime  Minister,  at  once  so 
curious  and  inquisitive,  so  easy,  tolerant,  wise, 
and  humane,  and  by  his  companionship,  with 


20  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

its  beautifully  blended  mixture  of  deference  and 
authority. 

And  so  the  Queen  remained  rather  a  narrow 
woman  all  her  life.  A  concentrated  mind  often 
makes  the  will  all  the  stronger.  And  the  cutting 
short  of  Lord  Melbourne's  lessons  leaves  its 
mark  perhaps  in  the  rather  childish  vehemence 
of  the  letters  to  her  ministers  with  all  their 
excitability  and  passionate  underlining.  As  we 
grow  older  most  of  us  abound  more  and  more  in 
our  own  sense.  It  is  the  very  business  of  a  sane 
and  wide  culture  to  prevent  our  doing  that  too 
much,  and  to  keep  the  mental  windows  open. 
The  Queen's  windows  were  early  shut,  and  never 
reopened.  And  so  authority  grew  more  and 
more  accustomed  to  itself,  closed  upon  itself, 
and  stiffened ;  so  that,  good  mother  as  she  wras, 
all  her  children  regarded  her  with  almost  as 
much  awe  as  affection  ;  and  the  mutual  affection, 
real  as  it  was,  was  not  incompatible  with  a  certain 
distance  of  relation.  I  have  heard,  for  instance, 
that  her  daughters  had  never  seen  their  mother 
in  bed,  or  even  entered  her  bedroom,  till  she  lay 
dying  and  almost  past  consciousness.  There 
may  be  parallels  to  this  habit  of  privacy  in  other 
women  of  her  generation.  The  practice  of 
turning  bedrooms  into  boudoirs  open  to  both 
sexes,  which  one  may  hope  is  not  common  to- 
day, was  not  even  invented  then.  But  in 
Victoria's  seclusion  there  was  probably  not  only 
her  generation,  nor  even  only  her  solitary 
position  as  Queen,  but  a  certain  stiffness  and 
narrowness  of  nature  and  disposition.  And  this 


THE  QUEEN'S   COURAGE          21 

narrowness,  satisfied  within  its  own  limitations, 
showed  itself  in  the  ugliness  of  the  homes  she 
made  for  herself  and  the  dullness  of  the  life  she 
was  content  to  live  in  them.  Exactly  dull  herself 
she  never  was,  I  imagine  ;  neither  her  natural 
ability,  nor  her  great  position,  nor  all  she  had 
seen  and  known  and  lived  through  allowed  of 
that.  But  if  she  could  not  make  herself  dull  she 
almost  seemed  to  choose  dullness  for  her  world, 
especially  the  worst  dullness  of  all — that  of 
monotony  and  routine. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  picture. 
Women  have  commonly  been  greater  in  heart 
than  in  head,  and  if  Victoria's  intelligence  was 
a  little  starved  her  emotional  capacities  were 
full  grown  and  beyond  the  ordinary  stature. 
Tenderness  and  bravery  often  go  together,  and  it 
is  sometimes  said  that  she  was  rarely  excelled  in 
either.  Perhaps  her  courage  has  been  exag- 
gerated. All  the  men  of  her  house  have  been 
conspicuous  for  it,  from  little  George  II.  at 
Dettingen  to  her  own  son  at  Calais  quite 
undisturbed  by  the  would-be  assassin.  And 
she  herself  showed  coolness,  it  appears,  on  the 
several  occasions  early  in  her  life  when  mis- 
creants tried  to  kill  her.  It  is  no  blame  to  a 
woman  if  she  could  not  keep  that  courage  up. 
Only,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  doubt  if  she  did.  I 
remember  an  old  Home  Secretary  telling  me  of 
his  pressing  her  to  make  a  public  appearance,  and 
of  her  replying,  "  You  would  not  press  me  if  you 
knew  how  frightened  I  am  all  the  time  of  being 
shot  at."  And  I  myself  was  once  witness  of  her 

c 


22  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

visible  agitation  in  a  London  street  when  she 
was  driving  with  the  Empress  Frederick  and  the 
carriage  was  unavoidably  stopped  for  a  few 
minutes  by  the  upset  of  an  omnibus  or  wagon. 
One  felt  that  she  was  asking  herself,  not  at  all 
unnaturally,  whether  the  block  had  been  an 
arranged  thing.  In  bigger  matters,  public 
matters,  she  was  as  brave  as  a  lion  ;  and  if  a 
foreign  enemy  had  ever  got  to  England  the  last 
person  to  admit  the  thought  of  surrender  would 
have  been  the  Queen.  Still  her  personal  courage 
in  her  later  years,  at  any  rate,  may  have  been 
exaggerated.  On  the  other  hand,  her  kindness  and 
sympathy  no  one  can  exaggerate.  If  the  Queen, 
and  the  ever-present  consciousness  of  what  she 
was,  sometimes  warped  the  woman  a  little,  as  in 
her  relations  with  her  children,  the  woman  may 
be  seen,  in  a  happier  way,  acting  on  the  Queen 
in  her  relations  with  her  people.  All  their  joys 
and  sorrows  were  hers,  as  they  had  never  been 
to  any  sovereign  before  her.  Everybody  felt 
that  the  sympathy  which  she  expressed  in  times 
of  public  calamity  was  perfectly  sincere.  And 
she  looked  for  and  gained  the  same  from  her 
people  in  her  own  private  sorrows.  This  was  a 
new  thing  of  her  own  creation.  When  Prince 
Henry  died  in  1612  poets  and  statesmen  sincerely 
grieved  over  the  death  of  a  Prince  of  the  highest 
promise.  But  I  suppose  very  few  of  the  people 
knew  much  about  it ;  and  neither  the  court  nor 
the  nation  cared  much  about  the  feelings  of 
James  I.  Queen  Victoria  made  a  family  relation 
between  herself  and  the  nation.  She  was  the 


THE  QUEEN  AND   HER  PEOPLE    23 

mother  of  her  people  ;  she  gave  them  her  heart, 
especially  in  their  sorrows,  and  she  expected  and 
obtained  theirs  in  return.  That  was  a  thing 
without  a  precedent  in  our  history  ;  it  was  a 
personal  achievement  of  Victoria's,  of  the  woman 
guiding  and  inspiring  the  Queen.  And,  though 
no  woman  of  letters,  she  was  extraordinarily 
felicitous  in  the  letters  which  she  addressed  to 
her  people  on  these  occasions.  That  on  the 
death  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  struck  many 
people  at  the  time  as  in  its  way  a  masterpiece ;  for 
what  can  a  masterpiece  do  more  than  perform 
its  particular  task  to  perfection  ? 

So  the  Queen,  to  whom  it  is  now  full  time  to 
turn,  was  helped  by  the  woman.  For  a  Sovereign 
who  had  no  hold  on  the  affections  of  the  people, 
would  in  this  country  under  modern  conditions 
be  of  little  importance.  The  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land from  whom  Victoria  saved  us  would  have 
been  a  risky  experiment  in  1837  ;  to-day  he 
would  probably  be  impossible.  The  Crown  is 
no  longer  regarded  as  a  personal  property  whose 
owner  is  just  a  legal  fact  irrespective  of  his 
character.  It  is  an  inheritance  the  splendour 
of  whose  jewels  each  succeeding  wearer  has  to 
justify  afresh.  The  essence  of  democracy  is 
that  everything  in  it  goes  by  consent.  It  is  yet 
to  be  proved  whether  that  sort  of  sanction  will 
in  the  long  run  prove  a  satisfactory  substitute 
for  the  older  ones  of  established  custom  and 
legal  right.  But  so  it  at  present  is.  With  our 
unwritten  Constitution  there  is  almost  nothing 
that  a  strong  wave  of  popular  desire  might  not 


24  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

accomplish.  No  doubt  if  such  a  wave  led  to  a 
visible  disaster,  as  it  easily  might,  it  would 
probably  produce  a  return  upon  itself  and  a 
demand  for  safeguards  of  some  sort,  written  or 
unwritten,  personal  or  impersonal.  And  one 
of  them  might  easily  be  some  revival  of  the 
Royal  authority,  the  only  authority  whose 
prestige  is  at  once  immense  and  universal 
throughout  all  parts  of  the  Empire.  Meanwhile, 
whatever  be  the  future  destiny  of  the  Crown, 
whether  it  be  lost  in  a  Republic,  or  restored  to 
some  greater  measure  of  personal  power,  or 
maintained  as  it  is,  the  ultimate  writer  of  its 
history  will  certainly  declare  that  no  one  had 
more  to  do  with  the  shaping  of  that  future  than 
Queen  Victoria.  We  cannot  yet  be  sure  what 
her  shaping  will  result  in.  But  we  can  be  sure 
that  the  historian  will  ultimately  perceive,  when 
the  event  is  accomplished,  that  the  processes 
which  were  decisive  in  producing  it  are  to  be 
looked  for  chiefly  in  the  reign  and  partly  in  the 
personal  character  and  actions  of  Victoria. 

What  was  she  as  Queen  ?  What  did  she  do  ? 
How  did  she  exercise  her  functions  as  Sovereign, 
and  how  did  her  exercise  of  them  affect  the 
position  of  the  Monarchy  ?  These  are  large 
questions,  much  too  large  to  receive  a  full 
answer  in  a  few  pages  of  a  short  essay.  But 
there  are  one  or  two  points  which  may  be 
touched  on. 

Victoria  inherited  the  difficult  task  of  playing 
the  chief  titular  part  in  working  that  vague  thing 
known  as  the  British  Constitution  which  few 


THE   BRITISH   CONSTITUTION     25 

pretend  to  understand  and  no  one  pretends  to 
define.  It  is  like  so  many  English  institutions, 
the  child  of  custom  and  precedent  and  com- 
promise, in  which  all  the  actors  play  parts  which 
have  never  been  written  out  for  them  and  fill  up 
the  piece  by  impromptus  as  they  go  along. 
Most  of  such  institutions  work  in  practice  very 
well  with  the  invaluable  help  of  the  English 
character.  Even  the  constitution  has  on  the 
whole  worked  very  well.  But  it  has  a  dis- 
advantage which  other  similar  institutions  have 
not,  a  disadvantage  which  peculiarly  affects  the 
Crown.  It  is  confronted  with  laws  which  are 
in  flagrant  contradiction  with  it.  The  contra- 
diction was  already  great  enough  when  the 
makers  of  the  American  Constitution,  very 
naturally  supposing  the  written  law  to  be  the 
best  guide  to  the  facts,  gave  their  President 
astonishing  powers  which  he  still  has,  though 
George  III.  had  in  practice  lost  them  before 
Washington  received  them.  It  became  greater 
still  after  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832 ;  and  it  is 
greater  now  than  it  was  then.  The  law  gives 
the  King  to-day,  and  still  more  of  course  gave 
him  in  1837,  a  very  large  number  of  powers 
which  it  is  tacitly  assumed  that  he  will  not  dream 
of  exercising.  In  theory  he  could  even  declare 
war  by  his  own  decision. 

Queen  Victoria,  a  girl  of  nineteen,  inherited 
this  uncertain  and  difficult  position.  Lord 
Melbourne  carefully  taught  her  the  customary 
constitutional  limitations  of  her  powers,  and  on 
the  whole  she  learnt  them  very  well.  But  he 


26  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

could  not  tell  her  precisely  what  they  were, 
because  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  knew.  Indeed 
they  were  changing,  and  have  continued  to  change, 
every  few  years  from  that  day  to  this.  And  a 
young  woman  of  strong  will  who  had  had  the 
Coronation  Service  said  over  her,  who  had  often 
heard  the  prayers  of  the  Prayer  Book  about  her, 
who  was  surrounded  by  a  deferential  Court  and 
was  in  constant  correspondence  with  foreign 
sovereigns  who  governed  as  well  as  reigned,  was 
sure  to  think  a  little  more  of  the  past  and  the 
letter  of  the  law  than  was  wise,  and  a  little  less  of 
the  present  and  the  spirit  of  the  constitution. 
And  so  no  doubt  Victoria  did.  She  always  not 
only  spoke  but  thought  of  "  my  "  Army,  "  my  " 
Navy,  "  my  "  Ministers,  even  of  "  my  "  engage- 
ments and  treaties.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
"  my  "  in  her  journals  and  letters.  And  in  law 
she  was  perfectly  right.  "  In  theory  the  Crown 
does  every  act  of  executive  government,"  says 
Sir  William  Anson,  in  his  book  on  the  Consti- 
tution. So,  also,  almost  everything  in  England 
that  belongs  to  the  State  belongs  in  law  to  the 
King.  The  very  laws  themselves  are  the  King's 
laws  "  enacted  by  the  King's  Most  Excellent 
Majesty  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  " 
certain  other  persons.  The  very  peace  which 
they  are  designed  to  protect  is  the  King's  peace, 
and  till  an  unimaginative  Act  of  Parliament, 
indifferent  to  poetry  and  history,  was  passed  in 
1915,  those  who  broke  it  were  said  to  offend 
"  against  the  peace  of  our  Sovereign  Lord  and 
King,  his  Crown  and  dignity."  But  law  and 


THE  QUEEN  AND   HER  POWERS    27 

life,  law  and  practice,  are  in  fact  very  different 
things,  and  the  King  as  understood  by  the  Con- 
stitution is  a  very  different  person  from  the 
King  as  defined  in  the  laws. 

All  this  made  a  very  difficult  position  for 
Victoria.  Herself  of  an  unimaginative,  precise, 
rather  legal  habit  of  mind  and  of  a  naturally 
authoritative  temper,  she  inevitably  clung  to 
as  much  as  she  could  of  her  legal  position  and 
continually  resented  the  ever  new  encroachment 
upon  it.  Her  letters,  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  of  which  we  know  anything,  are  full  of 
these  clingings  and  resistances,  and  they  make  a 
curious  study  in  the  working  of  such  a  system  as 
ours.  To  be  a  constitutional  Sovereign  is  in 
fact  to  be  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world. 
The  Sovereignty  and  the  constitutionalism  are 
so  very  awkward  to  reconcile,  and  the  differences 
between  them  so  apt  to  crop  up  at  every  turn. 
They  may  be  said,  in  one  sense,  to  fill  the  Queen's 
letters.  She  was  from  the  first,  and  probably  to 
the  last,  very  tenacious  of  her  rights  as  Sovereign. 
She  never  tried  to  use  them  for  any  personal  or 
selfish  objects,  but  she  believed  that  she  held 
them  as  trustee  for  the  permanent  interests  of 
the  nation,  and  was  determined  never  to  see 
them  infringed  without  protest.  In  her  view, 
which  is  the  view  of  the  law,  Ministers  were  her 
servants.  They  must  therefore  take  no  important 
step  without  her  previous  consent ;  appointments 
must  not  be  made,  or  even  talked  of,  till  she  had 
approved  the  names  ;  party  ties  must  not  be 
considered  against  the  claims  of  her  service ; 


28  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

above  all,  the  Army  and  Navy  were  her  Army  and 
Navy,  and  must  not  become  the  Army  and  Navy 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  Hence  the  perpetual 
rappings  over  the  knuckles  administered,  all 
through  the  letters,  to  statesman  after  statesman, 
especially,  of  course,  to  Lord  Palmerston,  be- 
tween 1846  and  his  dismissal  in  1851  ;  but  also, 
with  almost  equal  vigour,  to  Lord  John  Russell 
on  account  of  his  action  in  the  Italian  question, 
and  to  smaller  men  about  smaller  matters,  as, 
for  instance,  to  Mr.  Labouchere  about  a  Colonial 
Governorship,  to  Lord  Panmure  about  a  move- 
ment of  troops,  to  Lord  Stanley  about  the 
introduction  of  competitive  examinations,  and 
to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  for  omitting  her  name 
in  a  despatch  to  Lord  Raglan.  Of  course  she 
was  entirely  within  her  right  in  all  these  cases  ; 
no  lawyer  could  have  hesitated  for  a  moment 
between  her  view  of  her  position  and  that  on 
which  her  Ministers  often  acted,  though  only  a 
special  favourite  like  Aberdeen  could  state  it  frankly 
to  her.  Not  that  she  would  ever  have  denied 
in  terms  her  constitutional  and  Parliamentary 
position.  On  the  contrary,  she  fully  admitted 
it ;  and  the  difficulty  of  her  situation  simply 
consisted  in  the  fact  that  she  at  once  meant  to 
reign  and  meant  to  be  constitutional,  and  that 
the  problem  how  perfectly  to  carry  out  these  two 
intentions  is  one  that  remains  for  the  future  to 
solve.  She  had  nearly  always  a  policy  of  her  own ; 
it  was  frequently  a  wiser  policy  than  that  sug- 
gested by  any  one  else,  and  it  very  often  con- 
vinced her  Ministers ;  and,  that  being  so,  it 


THE  QUEEN  AND  HER  MINISTERS   29 

seemed  obvious  to  her  that  they  ought  to  proceed 
to  carry  it  out.  It  took  her  a  long  time  to 
realise  what  even  to-day  many  writers  on  politics 
fail  to  realise,  that,  in  our  Parliamentary  system, 
what  Ministers  can  do  is  not  what  they  wish  or 
even  what  they  think  right,  but  simply  as  much 
of  either  as  they  think  Parliament  can  be  per- 
suaded to  accept.  This  or  that,  she  was  apt  to 
argue,  was  the  legal  right  of  the  Crown,  the 
legal  function  of  the  Executive  ;  Ministers  must 
act  upon  it  as  the  Queen's  servants  and  in  the 
interests  of  the  country  ;  and,  as  to  the  approval 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  that  must  be  got 
somehow,  or  done  without,  as  it  legally  might  be. 
No  doubt  factious  members  of  Parliament  do 
appear  very  contemptible  when  seen  as  the  Queen 
saw  them,  from  the  high  point  of  view  of  the 
Throne,  or  from  the  wide  point  of  view  of  Europe 
— much,  indeed,  as  they  appear  to  history  and 
truth.  But  they  can  never  appear  negligible  to 
Ministers  whose  existence  and  power  of  useful- 
ness depend  on  their  votes.  The  Queen  once 
wrote  to  Lord  Derby  :  "  There  is  in  fact  no 
difference  of  opinion  between  the  Queen  and 
Lord  Derby  ;  the  latter  only  keeps  in  view  the 
effect  which  certain  words  will  have  in  Parliament 
and  upon  the  country,  whilst  she  looks  to  the 
effect  they  will  produce  upon  the  European 
conflict."  That  was  her  strength,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  services  she  rendered  to  English 
politics  throughout  her  reign.  She  supplied 
the  Cabinet  with  a  pair  of  European  eyes,  which 
saw  something  more  than  public  meetings  and 


30  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

Parliamentary  divisions.  But  it  was  also  her 
weakness.  The  natural  prejudices  of  a  Sovereign, 
one  of  that  family  of  crowned  heads  which  always 
feels  itself  a  class  apart  and  has  a  tenderness  even 
for  its  least  worthy  members,  combined  with 
the  legalism  of  her  disposition  to  make  the  Queen 
look  sometimes  at  European  changes  almost 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  kind  of  Royal  family 
solicitor.  The  notion  of  the  rights  of  certain 
august  personages,  and  of  the  government  of 
certain  tracts  of  land  as  their  heritable  property, 
lingered  in  her  mind  rather  longer,  perhaps, 
than  befitted  the  devoted  niece  of  the  King  of 
the  Belgians,  who  owed  his  Throne  to  a  popular 
uprising,  or,  as  Lord  John  Russell  had  ultimately 
to  remind  her,  to  the  heiress  of  the  Glorious 
Revolution  of  1688.  It  was  this  that  made  her 
shrink  in  early  days  from  any  idea  of  touching 
the  small  German  States,  and  kept  her  in  almost 
constant  opposition  to  the  efforts  made  by 
Palmerston  and  Russell  to  drive  Austria  out  of 
Lombardy  and  get  rid  of  the  effete  little  duchies 
that  stood  in  the  way  of  United  Italy. 

She  was  wrong  about  Italy  and  wrong  about 
some  other  important  questions.  But  it  is  worth 
noticing  how  often  it  was  she,  or  perhaps  in  reality 
the  Prince  Consort,  in  any  case  the  Crown  as 
opposed  to  the  Ministers,  who  read  the  European 
situation  aright.  She,  for  instance,  was  right 
and  Palmerston  wrong  about  the  danger  of 
revolution  in  the  France  of  Louis  Philippe  ;  she 
was  right  again  in  seeing  that  the  latitude  allowed 
to  Stratford  de  Redcliffeat  Constantinople  must 


THE  QUEEN'S  WISDOM  31 

lead  to  war  ;  she  was  right  both  in  the  caution 
and  prudence  which  might  have  prevented  that 
war  and  in  the  decision  with  which  she  rebuked 
Lord  Aberdeen  for  keeping  the  gloves  on  after 
the  fighting  was  begun.  It  was  she,  again,  who 
laid  down  in  an  admirable  letter  to  Palmerston 
in  1857  the  two  essential  points  for  the  new 
Government  of  India,  a  single  Secretary  of  State 
to  speak  in  the  Queen's  name  and  a  single 
Commander-in- Chief  to  command  the  whole 
army.  Above  all  it  was  she  who,  at  the  crisis  of 
her  life,  rendered  to  her  country  a  service,  the 
greatness  of  which  we  could  not  fully  realise 
before  1917,  by  so  altering  Lord  Russell's 
despatch  on  the  Trent  affair  as  to  leave  the 
United  States  a  loophole  for  honourable  retreat. 
This  last  action  was  admittedly  more  that  of  the 
dying  Prince  than  of  the  Queen ;  and  no  doubt 
most  of  her  views  between  1841  and  1861  were 
learnt  from  him.  But  it  is  scarcely  possible  to 
separate  the  two  personalities  who  had  long 
before  the  end  been  fused  into  one  by  a  life  in 
which  they  were  never  separated  and  after  the 
first  year  or  two  scarcely  ever  disagreed.  It  was 
no  doubt  the  Prince  who  guided  and  the  Queen 
who  followed ;  but  whatever  they  did  was  done  in 
the  name  of  the  Queen  and  was,  for  good  or  for 
evil,  credit  or  discredit,  the  act  of  the  Crown. 

That  their  devotion  to  the  interests  of  England, 
as  they  saw  them,  was  unbounded,  and  that  they 
often  rendered  the  highest  services  to  the  country, 
is  certain.  What  effect  their  activities  had  on 
the" position  of  the  Crown  is  more  doubtful. 


32  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

Mr.  Strachey  thinks  that  from  1840  to  1861  the 
power  of  the  Crown  steadily  increased,  and  he 
thinks  that  if  the  Prince  Consort  had  lived  he 
must  have  acquired  an  authority  which  no 
minister  could  resist  so  that  Disraeli's  prophecy 
might  perhaps  have  come  true  :  "If  the  Prince 
had  outlived  some  of  our  old  stagers  he  would 
have  given  us  the  blessings  of  absolute  govern- 
ment." 

Disraeli,  who  had  to  live  in  a  very  real  world, 
liked  playing  at  escaping  from  it  into  another, 
the  creation  of  his  mind,  in  which  the  conceiv- 
able was  the  possible  and  the  possible  often 
became  the  probable.  I  doubt  if  he,  with  his 
knowledge  of  English  politics,  ever  seriously 
thought  that  "  the  blessings  of  absolute  govern- 
ment "  were  attainable  in  this  country  unless 
and  until  the  prestige  of  Parliament  broke  down 
a  great  deal  more  than  he  ever  lived  to  see.  In 
the  sixties,  when,  according  to  the  prophecy  and 
to  Mr.  Strachey,  this  development  might  have 
taken  place,  that  prestige  was  absolutely  at  its 
height.  Only  a  man  unacquainted  with  politics 
like  Mr.  Strachey  or  wilfully  escaping  from  his 
acquaintance  like  Disraeli  could  imagine  any 
such  achievement  as  possible. 

Is  it  even  certain  that  the  Queen  and  Prince 
really  increased  the  power  of  the  Crown  in- 
herited by  her  in  1837  ?  Of  course  they  im- 
mensely increased  its  prestige  and  popularity 
with  the  people  at  large.  But  its  official  and 
political  power  ?  Had  they  more  or  less  power 
to  affect  the  decisions  of  their  Ministers  than 


THE  POWER  OF  THE  CROWN     33 

George  IV.  or  William  IV.?  Plainly  less  I 
think.  The  Queen  could  never  have  dismissed 
her  Ministers  of  her  own  will  as  William  IV. 
did  in  1834 ;  nor  could  a  great  question  of 
policy  like  Catholic  Emancipation  have  hung 
uncertain  on  her  attitude  as  it  did  on  that  of 
George  IV.  It  was  the  irony,  almost  the  tragedy, 
of  her  life  that,  though  she  in  a  sense  knew  this 
and  always  recognised  it  in  the  long  run,  she 
would  not  keep  it  present  to  her  everyday  mind. 
As  Mr.  Strachey  well  says,  "  Her  desire  to 
impose  her  will,  vehement  as  it  was  and  un- 
limited by  any  principle,  was  yet  checked  by  a 
certain  shrewdness.  She  might  oppose  her 
Ministers  with  extraordinary  violence ;  she 
might  remain  utterly  impervious  to  arguments 
and  supplications ;  the  pertinacity  of  her 
resolution  might  seem  to  be  unconquerable  ;  but 
her  innate  respect  and  capacity  for  business,  and 
perhaps,  too,  the  memory  of  Albert's  scrupulous 
avoidance  of  extreme  courses,  prevented  her 
from  ever  entering  an  impasse."  She  was 
furious  against  Mr.  Gladstone  about  Egypt  and 
about  Home  Rule,  and  even  against  her  beloved 
Disraeli  for  allowing  Derby  and  Carnarvon  to 
sickly  o'er  his  resolution  in  facing  Russia 
with  their  own  pale  cast  of  thought.  But  an 
actual  breach  with  either  she  had  too  much  good 
sense,  and  too  much  sense  of  duty,  to  face.  In 
the  long  run  she  knew  that  it  was  the  Cabinet 
who  must  decide  large  issues  of  policy.  But 
there  lay  the  tragedy.  It  was  only  in  the  long 
run  that  she  knew  it.  Hence  she  constantly 


34  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

overdid  the  proper  part  which  still  remains  to 
the  Sovereign  in  matters  of  policy.  Sir  William 
Anson  says  :  "  Kings  still  remain  the  instrument 
without  which  Ministers  cannot  act ;  they  still 
remain  advisers  who  have  enjoyed  unusual 
opportunities  for  acquiring  the  knowledge  which 
makes  advice  valuable,  who  may  be  possessed 
of  more  than  ordinary  experience,  where  warnings 
must  be  listened  to  with  more  than  ordinary 
courtesy."  All  this  she  had  ;  and  in  the  last  half 
of  her  reign,  her  age,  her  lifelong  connection 
with  great  affairs,  the  fact  that  she  was  a  woman, 
her  unique  position  as  the  general  grandmother 
of  the  Emperors  and  Kings  of  Europe,  gave  her 
the  chance  of  realising  it  to  a  degree  which  no 
other  constitutional  Sovereign  is  likely  to  equal. 
But  she  largely  missed  her  chance  because  of  her 
vehemence  and  passion  and  because  she  would 
overstep  this  rdle.  She  would  write  and  speak, 
often  till  nearly  the  last  moment,  as  if  the  final 
decision  rested  with  her  ;  as  if  she  were  not, 
what  Anson  makes  her,  the  most  honoured  and 
august  of  amid  curicv,  but  what  the  letter  of 
the  law  makes  her,  the  actual  Court  itself. 
Hence  the  life  and  labours  recorded  in  her  letters 
seem  partly  wasted. 

Sometimes  after  reading  accounts  of  her 
laborious  hours  the  feeling  which  rises  in  one's 
mind  recalls  ancient  words  :  she  had  toiled  all 
day  and  taken  nothing.  Even  her  legitimate  and 
necessary  functions  gave  her  days  of  work 
which  few  women,  or  men  either,  could  have 
borne  as  she  bore  them.  Here  is  a  single  day 


A  DAY  OF  THE  QUEEN'S  LIFE    35 

of  her  life  as  we  see  it  in  her  published  letters  : 
February  2,  1855.  It  begins  with  an  elaborate 
memorandum  by  the  Prince  on  the  interviews 
of  the  previous  day  consequent  on  the  resignation 
of  the  Aberdeen  Ministry.  Then  visit  of  Lord 
Lansdowne,  followed  by  long  memorandum  by 
the  Queen.  Letter  of  the  Queen  to  Lord  John 
Russell.  Visit  of  Lord  John,  followed  by 
memorandum  by  the  Queen  and  Prince.  Lord 
Lansdowne  again.  Letter  to  Lord  John  by  the 
Queen  commanding  him  to  form  a  Ministry. 
Reply  of  Lord  John  accepting.  Surely  not 
many  days  in  any  life  can  show  a  more  crowded 
succession  of  responsible  labours.  And  this  was 
her  inevitable  and  unavoidable,  though  of  course 
only  occasional,  duty.  What  she  added  to  it, 
what  she  conceived  herself  also  to  be  bound  to 
do,  made  a  strain  that  was  scarcely  ever  relaxed. 
She  told  the  Prince  before  their  marriage  that 
she  could  find  time  for  only  two  or  three  days' 
honeymoon,  and  when  he  lay  dying  she  had  to 
attend  to  public  business  the  day  before  his 
death  and  resume  it  a  fortnight  later.  No  one 
can  read  her  life  without  being  moved  and  a  little 
inspired  by  her  industry  and  sense  of  duty. 
"  I  will  be  good."  She  was  not  a  woman  of 
genius,  but  she  was  supremely  a  woman  of 
character.  Indeed,  if  genius  were  what  the 
absurd  definition  called  it  "an  infinite  capacity 
for  taking  pains,"  no  one  would  be  more  a 
woman  of  genius  than  she.  And  all  the  pains 
were  taken  in  the  fulfilment  of  duty  and  the 
service  of  England. 


36  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

The  duty  and  the  service,  that  is,  as  she 
understood  them.  She  was  anxious  to  do  the 
full  work  and  maintain  the  full  powers  of  the 
Crown.  But  the  course  she  actually  took  did 
neither  of  these  things.  The  work  she  liked 
doing  was  done  in  secret,  and  some  of  it,  her 
private  management  of  such  difficult  crises  as 
those  of  1869  and  1885,  and  of  several  difficult 
changes  of  Ministry,  was  admirable,  such  as  no 
other  person  could  possibly  have  done.  But 
those  successes  were  possible  precisely  because 
her  position  placed  her  at  an  impersonal  height 
above  parties  and  even  above  policies.  It  should 
have  helped  her  to  see  that  it  was  not  her  most 
essential  business  to  have  opinions  of  her  own 
about  measures  of  internal  or  even  of  foreign 
policy.  Her  most  essential  function  was  to  be 
visible,  a  personification  of  the  nation  seen  by 
the  people  and  awakening  the  people's  imagina- 
tion. She  could  not  govern  as  Elizabeth 
governed,  but  she  could  still  do  what  Elizabeth 
had  done  better  than  any  English  Sovereign. 
Her  actual  interventions  in  the  field  of  legislation 
— the  most  noticeable  is,  perhaps,  the  Public 
Worship  Regulation  Act,  which  was  more  or 
less  forced  on  Disraeli  by  her — were  not  com- 
monly happy.  As  a  rule  her  pressure  on  her 
Ministers  simply  failed.  They  received  her 
remonstrances  with  respect  and  then  went  on 
very  much  as  before.  Probably  this  process  has 
now  gone  undesirably  far.  The  King  ought 
not  to  be  quite  an  automaton  even  in  these 
matters  of  legislation.  He  ought  to  be  a  kind  of 


THE  QUEEN'S  MISTAKE          37 

presence  of  perpetual  common  sense,  repre- 
senting permanence  as  against  the  transience  of 
Ministers,  recalling  the  past  and  preparing  for 
the  future,  as  men  who  only  came  into  office 
yesterday  and  are  afraid  of  being  turned  out 
to-morrow  cannot  always  be  trusted  to  do. 
But  this  can  only  be  by  suggestion  and  not  by 
authority.  And  the  Queen  might  perhaps  have 
had  more  authority  if  she  had  been  more  careful 
to  use  all  her  opportunities  for  strengthening 
her  public  position.  Only  a  strong  public 
position  could  enforce  her  private  influence. 
As  it  was  she  ran  too  much  after  the  will  o'  the 
wisp  of  direct  political  power,  and  tended  to 
neglect  the  ceremonial  and  other  functions  which 
would  have  increased  her  indirect  influence.  She 
gave  up  her  predecessors'  practice  of  pro- 
roguing Parliament  and  she  seldom  opened  it. 
She  lived  constantly  away  from  London,  visibly 
apart  from  the  machine  of  Government.  She 
went  abroad,  as  none  of  her  predecessors  had 
done,  without  making  any  provision  for  the 
appointment  of  persons  to  perform  the  Royal 
functions  in  her  absence.  In  all  these  ways  she 
produced  the  last  impression  she  wished  to 
produce,  and  quite  a  false  impression  too,  that 
the  machine  worked  equally  well  without  the 
Sovereign.  It  was  not  in  fact  working  without 
the  Sovereign.  Her  laborious  and  incessant 
reading  and  writing  saw  to  that.  But  to  have 
been  seen  in  London  in  daily  contact  with  her 
Ministers  would  have  strengthened  her  far  more 
than  all  those  official  boxes,  travelling  unseen 

D 


38  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

between  Windsor  or  Osborne  and  Whitehall. 
And  if  she  would  have  taken  a  hint  from  the 
"  progresses  "  of  Elizabeth,  the  most  popular 
thing  ever  done  by  an  English  Sovereign  ;  if  she 
would  have  sometimes  left  the  boxes  unopened 
for  a  while  and  travelled  in  a  carriage  by  slow 
stages  from  Windsor  to  Balmoral ;  what  a 
position,  yes  and  what  a  power,  she  would  have 
won  !  As  it  was,  by  her  visible  goodness,  by 
her  simplicity  and  tenderness,  by  her  open 
sympathy  with  her  people's  sorrows  and  her 
open  call  for  theirs  in  her  own,  she  gained  what 
no  Sovereign  had  had  before  her — the  affections 
of  the  whole  English  people.  But  if  they  could 
have  seen  her,  there  is  almost  no  limit  to  what 
she  might  have  gained. 

In  another  way  too  perhaps,  an  official  and 
legal  way,  she  might  have  strengthened  the 
power  of  the  Sovereign,  but  did  in  fact  allow  it 
to  be  rather  weakened.  The  Crown  is  the 
fountain  of  all  honour  and  all  office.  The  Queen 
knew  this  well,  and  was  more  tenacious  than  her 
successors  have  been  of  the  royal  rights  in 
those  matters.  But  even  she  was  scarcely  as 
tenacious  as  she  should  and  could  have  been. 
The  very  height  and  distance  of  the  Crown 
makes  it  the  ideal  judge  of  the  advice  given  to 
it  about  honours  and  promotions.  If  the  Queen 
had  from  the  first  and  to  the  last  [absolutely 
refused  to  grant  honours  for  which  her  Ministers 
could  not  give  her  really  good  reasons'she  would 
have  strengthened^  the  whole  weight  of  the 
Crown  in  the  working  of  the  constitutional 


THE  QUEEN  AND   HONOURS       39 

machine.  Ministers  would  not  have  dared  to 
quarrel  with  her,  for  the  country  would  never 
have  tolerated  a  political  crisis  caused  by  the 
insistence  of  the  Ministers  on  the  promotion  of 
some  vain  or  ambitious  Baron  to  an  Earldom, 
or  of  some  intriguing  journalist  or  party  hack  to 
a  Baronetcy  or  a  Knighthood.  The  victory  would 
always  have  been  with  the  Queen,  and  it  would 
have  increased  her  political  power  in  the  best 
way.  And  it  would  have  been  quite  easy  if  she 
had  cared  as  much  about  it  as  she  did  about 
correspondence  on  matters  of  policy  on  which 
she  could  not  prevail. 

On  the  whole  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
choice  she  made  of  the  work  she  would  do  was 
a  tragic  mistake.  Her  temperament  and  her 
husband's  tastes  and  example  led  her  to  spend 
a  very  laborious  life  in  trying  to  do  what  she 
could  not  do,  what  was  not  in  fact  her  function  ; 
and  consequently,  as  the  unavoidable  result,  to 
neglect  other  things  which  were  her  function 
and  which  she  could  have  done.  That  was 
again  the  tragedy  of  a  hereditary  position  which 
she  did  not  choose  for  herself.  Most  of  us,  free 
men  and  women,  are  probably  right  as  a  rule  in 
thinking  that  the  thing  we  most  like  doing, 
provided  the  liking  be  that  of  our  whole  and  highest 
nature,  is  what  it  is  our  duty  to  do.  The  young 
man  who  has  the  instinct  for  art  or  soldiering 
will  generally  be  a  better  man  as  artist  or  soldier 
than  he  will  as  anything  else.  But  the  Queen 
had  her  choice  made  for  her  at  her  birth.  And 
it  called  her  to  a  function  capable  of  two  inter- 


40  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

pretations.  And  she  chose  the  one  she  liked 
best,  which  unfortunately  was  the  wrong  one. 
She  would  like  to  have  been  a  permanent  civil 
servant,  sitting  all  day  in  Whitehall,  reading  and 
writing  official  papers  and  often  deciding  policies 
about  which  others  were  to  make  a  great  figure 
in  public.  That  is  what  she  tried  all  her  life  to 
be,  but  of  course  failed  in  being.  She  could 
and  did  spend  her  life  over  official  papers.  But 
she  could  not  decide  policies.  And  she  was 
born  to  make  a  great  figure  in  public,  and,  with 
all  her  reluctance,  could  not  always  escape  doing 
so. 

Her  life,  in  fact,  seems  to  be  divided  between 
a  failure  and  a  success.  Happily  the  success  is 
by  far  the  more  important.  What  she  failed  in 
was  the  thing  to  which  she  gave  almost  all  her 
industry  and  will ;  her  success,  a  success  beyond 
all  parallel,  almost  beyond  all  measure,  lay  in  a 
direction  which  she  scarcely  understood,  which 
perhaps  of  all  her  Ministers  only  Disraeli  was 
capable  of  understanding.  That  pathetic  daily 
industry  did  not  very  greatly  modify  either 
home  or  foreign  policy.  But  while  she  was 
toiling  at  it  in  vain,  she  was,  all  unaware,  be- 
coming a  legend.  Her  name  was  a  word  of 
veneration  all  over  the  earth.  I  remember 
being  told  by  a  lady  who  had  travelled  among 
Arabs  and  by  some  imprudent  conduct  had  got 
into  difficulties  with  fanatics,  that  she  believed 
she  might  have  been  killed  if  her  assailants  had 
not  taken  up  her  box  and  read  on  it  her  name, 
which,  happily  for  her,  was  the  great  name  of 


A  LEGEND  AND  A  MYSTERY     41 

Victoria.  The  Queen  in  her  old  age  seems  to 
have  conquered  both  space  and  time.  She 
once  told  a  friend  that  she  supposed  she  was  the 
only  person  who  ever  outlived  four  generations 
of  distinguished  contemporaries,  explaining  that 
by  contemporaries  she  meant  those  with  whom 
she  had  daily  (and  almost  exclusively)  to  work. 
There  are  other  cases,  perhaps — Louis  XIV.  for 
instance — but  hers  is  extraordinary  enough. 
Her  own  generation,  as  she  said,  she  never  knew. 
She  was  brought  up  with  the  old,  and  when  she 
came  to  the  Throne  she  began  by  living  with 
Melbourne,  and  then  he  died  ;  then  with  Peel 
and  Russell  and  Palmerston,  and  then  they  died  ; 
then  with  Disraeli  and  Gladstone,  and  then  they 
died  ;  and  still  she  lived  on  with  Lord  Salisbury 
and  Lord  Rosebery  and  Mr.  Balfour.  And 
whether  she  thought  of  it  or  not,  what  one  may 
call  her  gradual  extension  in  space  was  as 
remarkable  as  her  duration  in  time.  When  she 
came  to  the  Throne,  the  name  of  the  Queen  of 
England  meant  little  outside  this  island.  When 
she  died  an  awe  of  silence  fell  not  only  on  the 
whole  people  of  Great  Britain  from  Court  to 
cottage,  but  on  every  Royal  House  in  Europe, 
and  far  beyond  Europe,  on  Indian  palaces,  on 
African  and  Polynesian  huts.  Victoria  had 
become  a  legend  and  a  mystery ;  her  name 
called  out  the  affectionate  devotion  of  millions 
who  had  never  seen  her  ;  it  was  a  charm  and  a 
spell  throughout  the  vast  world  of  her  Empire. 
4  The  final  years,"  as  Mr.  Strachey  says,  "  were 
years  of  apotheosis."  His  word  makes  one 


42  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

think  of  the  Sovereigns  whose  position  of  all  in 
history  was  at  once  most  like  and  most  unlike 
hers.  The  Roman  Emperors  ruled  as  she  did 
over  a  vast  and  world- wide  Empire.  Very  few 
of  their  subjects  had  ever  seen  them ;  all 
reverenced  the  mysterious  majesty  of  Caesar. 
For  the  Senate  and  the  Consuls  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  still  nominally  subsisting  constitutional 
paraphernalia  of  the  great  Republic  they  cared 
next  to  nothing.  The  whole  greatness  of  Rome 
had  become  embodied  in  a  person,  and  inevitably, 
as  things  were  then,  that  person  was  conceived 
as  something  more  than  human,  as  a  Divine 
Presence  ruling  and  protecting  the  world. 
Queen  Victoria's  direct  and  personal  share  in 
governing  her  Empire  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
small  one.  Her  individual  opinions  or  caprices 
did  not  make  or  unmake  laws  and  fortunes  as 
did  those  of  Augustus  and  his  successors.  But 
like  them  she,  and  she  alone,  held  her  multiple 
and  various  Empire  together  by  the  single  link 
of  her  throne  and  name,  the  one  thing  all  held 
in  common  veneration.  Her  genuine  modesty 
— "  if  they  only  knew  me,"  she  would  say  when 
she  heard  of  some  fulsome  newspaper  adulation 
— and  her  sincere  piety  would  of  course  have 
shrunk  in  horror  from  the  deification  permitted 
or  encouraged  by  the  Emperors.  But  it  is  likely 
enough  that  there  were  not  a  few  primitive 
places  in  which  she  was  actually  worshipped. 
And,  apart  from  anything  of  that  kind,  she  had 
in  reality  a  kind  of  religious  position.  For  she 
was  not  only  the  ultimate  and  mysterious  symbol 


THE  QUEEN  AND  THE  EMPIRE    43 

of  the  British  Empire.  The  British  flag  could 
play  that  part  as  the  Roman  eagle  could  for  Rome. 
But  the  Queen  was  more  than  the  flag.  She  was 
more  than  a  mere  symbol ;  she  was  what  a  symbol 
becomes  when  it  is  the  thing  which  it  symbolises  : 
she  was  at  once  the  appearance  and  the  reality, 
all  that  the  flag  is  and  all  that  it  cannot  be,  the 
sacramental  unity,  visible  and  embodied,  of  the 
British  race  and  Empire.  Perhaps  she  could 
never  have  become  all  that  if  she  had  not  been  a 
woman  and  lived  to  be  very  old.  But  what  she 
half  unconsciously  won,  others  can  receive  and 
maintain.  If  they  do  so  the  Monarchy  may 
play  a  very  high  part  in  shaping  the  future 
destiny  of  our  race.  But  whatever  her  successors 
may  achieve,  to  her  will  always  belong  the  glory 
of  inauguration.  It  may  be  that  when  the 
ultimate  story  comes  to  be  told,  it  will  be  seen 
that  it  was  the  Monarchy  more  than  anything 
else  which  gave  imaginative  and  emotional  unity 
to  all  the  diverse  worlds  of  Britain.  If  so, 
many  kings  may  have  made  their  contribution 
to  the  great  result.  But  the  first  tribute  and  the 
highest  will  still  have  to  be  paid  to  the  Queen 
who  for  sixty-three  years  reigned  in  ever  greater 
fame  and  honour  over  an  ever-widening  Empire, 
and  half  unconsciously,  as  great  things  are  often 
done,  gathered  to  herself  its  faith  and  loyalty 
till  she  seemed  the  promise  of  a  destiny  of 
which  without  her  it  could  not  have  dreamt. 
Fate  has  its  unconscious  ways  and  silent  pre- 
monitions. It  was  not  for  nothing  that  by  a 
kind  of  accident  and  against  her  father's  will,  the 


44  QUEEN  VICTORIA 

child  of  destiny  who  was  born  in  1819  was  at 
the  very  last  moment,  as  she  lay  already  in  the 
arms  of  the  archbishop,  unexpectedly  given  the 
great  name  of  Victoria. 


II 

THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF 
DISRAELI,  1837-1846* 

IT  will  be  universally  admitted  that  Mr.  Mony- 
penny's  second  volume  f  is  far  more  interesting 
than  his  first.  The  story  he  tells  here  is  one  of 
the  most  dazzling  in  our  Parliamentary  annals. 
There  is  no  more  trumpeting  and  skirmishing 
now  ;  we  are  in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  the  first, 
most  daring,  and  most  entirely  triumphant  of  all 
Disraeli's  combats.  No  subsequent  victories 
can  ever  give  back  to  the  victor  the  exultant 
delight  of  the  first  triumph  of  youth.  David 
was  a  man  of  war  all  his  life,  but  he  can  never 
have  been  so  happy  as  on  the  day  he  slew 
Goliath.  These  pages  show  Disraeli  slaying 
his  Goliath.  After  that,  as  a  political  soldier, 
the  highest  he  could  hope  for  was  to  live  up  to  his 
reputation.  Chatham  was  a  greater  man  than 
Disraeli ;  but  Disraeli's  victorious^  single  combat 
with  Peel  was  a  far  greater  achievement  than 
Chatham's  share  in  the  assaults  of  the  brilliant 
band  who  at  last  compelled  Walpole  and  Walpole's 
successors  to  surrender.  Our  knowledge  of 
Chatham's  speeches  is  limited  and  uncertain  ; 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  November  14,  1912. 

f  "  The  Life  of  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield," 
by  William  Flavelle  Monypenny.  Volume  II.,  1837- 
1846.  (Murray,  izs.  net.) 

45 


46  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

but,  while  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  was  a  greater 
orator  than  Disraeli,  it  is  almost  equally  safe  to  say 
that  in  one  kind  of  oratory,  in  invective,  he  can 
never  have  equalled  the  great  series  of  attacks 
under  which  Peel  writhed  between  1843  and  1846, 
which  none  of  the  hearers  ever  forgot  and  some 
of  them,  not  the  least  important,  never  forgave. 

There  is  nothing  quite  like  them  in  our 
political  history.  The  nearest  parallel  is  that 
already  mentioned,  the  assault  of  the  "  patriots  " 
on  Walpole.  Charles  Fox  did  splendid  work  in 
the  long  attack  on  Lord  North,  but  invective  to 
be  really  powerful  needs  more  than  a  touch  of 
venom,  and  that  could  not  be  found  in  the  most 
good-natured  of  men  attacking  the  most  easy- 
going of  Prime  Ministers  whom  no  insults 
could  provoke  out  of  a  smile.  Lowe's  great 
assaults  upon  the  Reform  Ministry  of  1866  are 
a  nearer  parallel  to  the  power  of  Disraeli's 
speeches,  but  they  struck  rather  at  a  political 
theory  than  at  a  man.  To  find  a  real  rival  to 
Disraeli  in  this  use  of  the  highest  powers  of 
speech  to  do  to  death  a  personal  and  political 
enemy  we  have  to  go  further  afield.  The  nearest 
parallel  of  all  is  the  great  series  of  speeches  in 
which  Cicero  poured  out  the  hatred  of  years  upon 
the  enemy  who  in  his  eyes  was  both  morally  and 
politically  the  vilest  of  men.  The  parallel  is 
unfortunately  made  the  closer  by  the  fact  that 
both  Cicero  and  Disraeli  had  been  in  friendly 
relations,  publicly  as  well  as  privately,  with  the 
victims  of  their  murderous  attack.  On  the  other 
hand  Disraeli,  unlike  Cicero,  had  to  face  the 


DISRAELI  AND  PEEL  47 

immense  difficulty  of  assailing  a  man  of  estab- 
lished character  without  any  character  of  his  own 
to  support  the  attack.  The  universal  opinion 
of  his  countrymen,  and  still  more  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  set  Peel's  character  in  the  highest 
and  strongest  of  positions,  defended  by  forti- 
fications which  were  the  work  of  many  years. 
Disraeli  was  at  the  bottom  and  had  the  whole 
hill  to  climb.  He  had  none  of  the  artillery  of 
official  experience,  or  party  connexion,  or  personal 
character  to  bring  to  bear  on  the  enemy's  walls, 
which  without  them  seemed  unassailable.  Yet 
he  took  the  fortress  in  the  end,  almost  alone,  by 
his  own  unaided  genius.  The  "  organised 
hypocrisy "  was  destroyed ;  and  though  Peel 
succeeded  in  the  great  task  he  had  in  hand  he 
was  never  again  the  leader  of  a  great  party.  To 
any  one  who  wishes  to  maintain  a  real  moral 
standard  in  political  life,  the  question  of  Disraeli's 
character  is  inevitably  raised  by  this  episode. 
Mr.  Monypenny  does  not  shirk  it.  At  least,  he 
makes  no  pretence  of  denying  that  a  general 
distrust  of  Disraeli  existed,  or  that  if  his  character 
had  stood  higher  many  things  would  have  been 
different  in  the  history  of  those  years.  It  is 
probable,  for  instance,  that  in  that  case  he 
would  have  received  office  in  1841.  Nor  did  the 
difficulty  end  with  these  years.  When  Mr. 
Monypenny  comes  to  the  story  of  that  thirty 
years'  exile  in  the  wilderness  which  the  Conserva- 
tive Party  had  to  suffer  after  1846,  he  will,  no 
doubt,  have  to  admit  that  one  of  the  causes  of  it 
was  the  fact  that  Disraeli  was  at  once  indis- 


48  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

pensable  and  impossible.  That  feeling  lingered 
even  after  he  had  been  Prime  Minister,  as  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  in  the  early  seventies  a 
secret  conclave  of  Tory  magnates  met  to  consider 
his  deposition  from  the  leadership.  Only  after 
the  victory  of  1874  did  it  entirely  disappear. 
Then,  indeed,  when  he  was  too  old  and  too  tired 
to  do  much  except  enjoy  it,  he  became  the  idol 
and  autocrat  of  his  party,  the  almost  equal  friend 
of  his  Sovereign,  the  accepted  and  admired  ruler 
of  the  nation.  But,  even  so,  something  of  the 
same  sort  revived  after  his  death.  Many  people 
explained  the  long  delay  in  publishing  his  bio- 
graphy by  assuming  that  his  papers  disclosed  too 
much  that  his  friends  could  have  no  desire  to 
make  public.  As  far  as  one  can  judge  the 
assumption  is  entirely  untrue.  Mr.  Monypenny 
writes  with  an  appearance  of  perfect  candour, 
and  his  investigation  of  all  that  there  is  to 
investigate  has  evidently  not  deprived  his  hero 
of  his  respect. 

The  worst  charge  ever  made  against  Disraeli 
relates  to  those  years.  It  is  certain  that  in  1841 
he  (and,  with  or  without  his  knowledge,  his  wife) 
wrote  to  Peel  asking  for  office  ;  and  it  is  equally 
certain  that  in  1844  he  said  in  a  speech  at  Shrews- 
bury, "  I  never  asked  for  a  place  "  ;  and  when, 
at  the  height  of  their  duel  in  1846,  Peel  alluded 
to  his  application,  Disraeli  assured  the  House  of 
Commons  that  "  nothing  of  the  kind  ever 
occurred."  What  is  to  be  said  of  these  pro- 
ceedings ?  Everybody  then,  as  now,  knew  that 
Peel  was  incapable  of  falsehood  ;  nobody  was 


WAS   DISRAELI  A  LIAR?          49 

very  sure  about  Disraeli.  If  Lord  Althorp  or 
the  late  Duke  of  Devonshire  had  said  what 
Disraeli  said,  all  would  have  been  certain  that 
there  was  some  curious  lapse  of  memory  on  his 
side  or  on  Peel's.  But  Disraeli,  as  usual,  suffered 
from  his  lack  of  character,  and  the  general  im- 
pression was  simply  that  he  had  lied.  And  that  is 
still  the  accepted,  and  perhaps  the  correct,  view. 
It  is  the  one  frankly  taken  by  his  biographer, 
who  states  it  and  comments  :  "  He  must  pay  the 
full  penalty.  Let  the  politician  who  is  without 
sin  in  the  matter  of  veracity  cast  the  first  stone." 
On  this  there  are,  perhaps,  two  things  to  be 
said.  Some  of  us  may  not  be  willing  so  lightly 
to  surrender  the  truthfulness  of  our  statesmen, 
and  may  claim  that  an  important  distinction  should 
be  made.  No  one  supposes  that  politicians 
always  tell  the  truth.  But  there  are  untruths 
and  untruths.  A  scrupulous  man  would  prefer 
not  to  say  that  he  expected  to  be  at  the  top  of  the 
poll  when  he  was  fighting  a  hopeless  seat.  But 
such  statements  deceive  nobody  and  are,  perhaps, 
no  more  lies  than  our  conventional  expressions 
of  regret  at  our  inability  to  dine  with  a  dull 
acquaintance.  A  more  important  class  of 
political  untruth  is  that  almost  imposed  upon 
statesmen  by  the  necessities  of  the  State  or — 
what  they  often  value  nearly  as  highly — of  their 
party.  A  Minister  is  asked  whether  a  foreign 
or  colonial  Government  has  made  a  certain 
proposal,  or  whether  a  governor  or  a  general 
has  desired  to  resign.  The  proposal  or  resigna- 
tion has  in  fact  been  made  ;  but  it  is  hoped  to 


50  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

get  it  withdrawn  and  restore  the  status  quo, 
That  will  be  impossible  if  the  facts  get  known. 
To  decline  to  deny  them  is,  in  fact,  often  tanta- 
mount to  an  admission.  It  seems  necessary 
here  to  deny  on  public  grounds,  as  even  the 
austere  Johnson  allowed  a  man  might  legiti- 
mately do,  when  a  lawful  secret  could  be  kept  in 
no  other  way.  No  doubt  a  man  had  better  be 
very  strict  about  indulging  even  in  this  sort  of 
untruth.  But  it  is  fair  to  say,  in  answer  to 
Mr.  Monypenny,  that  it  is  this  sort,  and  not  any 
other,  of  which  statesmen  must  be  admitted  to 
have  often  been  guilty  ;  and  that  it  is  a  very 
different  sort  from  the  merely  self-interested  lie 
which  he  believes  Disraeli  told,  and  against 
which  it  is  to  be  hoped  many  politicians  might 
justly  cast  their  stone.  But  is  it  certain  that  it 
was  a  lie  ?  The  evidence  appears  at  first  sight 
irresistible.  But  there  is  something  to  be  said 
on  behalf  of  a  plea  for  doubt  and  the  benefit  of 
doubt.  Whether  Disraeli  was  a  knave  or  not, 
no  one  thinks  he  was  a  fool.  Would  any  one  but 
a  fool  have  run  the  tremendous  risk  of  Peel's 
overwhelming  him  by  the  production  of  his 
letter  ?  Is  it  impossible  that  Disraeli  had  for- 
gotten the  letter  or  that  he  had  the  impression 
that  he  had  been  much  more  guarded  in  it  than 
in  fact  he  had  ?  We  have  seen  stranger  and 
more  rapid  lapses  of  memory  in  our  time  about 
what  was  or  was  not  said  at  meetings  between 
statesmen,  and  nobody  has  doubted  the  bona 
fides  of  both  the  contradictory  accounts.  There 
is  one  other  point.  Why  should  so  practised  a 


THE   BENEFIT  OF  THE   DOUBT    51 

debater  as  Disraeli  have  resorted  to  a  very 
dangerous  lie  in  his  defence  when  he  had  an 
obvious  and  perfectly  satisfactory  debating 
answer  to  Peel's  point  ?  Peel  asked  how  Disraeli 
could  have  been  willing  to  serve  him  if  he  really 
thought  as  badly  of  his  earlier  career  as  he  now 
asserted.  The  answer  was  obvious.  A  man 
may  deal  in  questionable  transactions  once  or 
twice  and  his  character  may  be  so  good  that  you 
may  be  certain  he  had  no  wrong  intention,  and 
may  be  perfectly  ready  to  trust  him.  But  when 
he  finally  commits  forgery  you  see  the  earlier 
proceedings  in  the  light  of  the  later  crime. 
Whether  Disraeli  was  an  honest  man  or  not 
there  was  nothing  incompatible  with  honesty  in 
trusting  Peel  in  1841  and  yet  saying  in  1846, 
after  Peel  had  used  a  Protectionist  majority  to 
force  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  on  the  country, 
that  that  proceeding  threw  a  lurid  light  on  his 
whole  past. 

No  wise  man,  however,  would  accept  a  brief 
to  make  a  saint,  even  a  political  saint,  of  Disraeli. 
Human  motives  are  mixed  things,  and  no  one 
probably  serves  his  country  without  being 
influenced  in  some  degree  by  the  ambition  of 
fame  or  power  for  himself.  Mr.  Gladstone 
probably  fancied  that  the  public  service  was  the 
only  thing  he  had  in  view  in  his  political  career. 
But  moral  men  are  perhaps  even  more  liable 
than  others  to  self-deception  ;  and  it  is  certain 
that  Mr.  Gladstone,  like  all  strong  and  healthy 
people,  liked  getting  his  own  way  because  it  was 
his  own  way  and  not  at  all  solely  because  he 


52  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

believed  it  was  a  way  of  safety  for  his  country. 
Disraeli,  a  far  more  clear-sighted  man,  both 
about  his  own  character  and  about  other  matters, 
did  not  conceal  the  truth  from  himself  or  others. 
When  he  talks  in  "  Coningsby  "  of  the  motives 
that  induce  men  to  enter  public  life,  the  highest 
he  mentions  is  "  public  reputation."  When  he 
speaks  to  his  constituents  of  the  same  subject 
and  comes  to  deal  with  his  own  motives,  he  says, 
"  I  will  tell  you  what  they  are.  I  love  fame  ; 
I  love  public  reputation  ;  I  love  to  live  in  the  eyes 
of  the  country  ;  and  it  is  a  glorious  thing  for  a 
man  to  do  who  has  had  my  difficulties  to  contend 
against."  That  is  a  frank  statement ;  an  avowal 
of  no  ignoble  ambition,  certainly  ;  but  the  desired 
goal  is  not  one  that  would  have  completely 
satisfied  Burke  or  Peel,  Gladstone  or  Salisbury. 
All  these  men,  not  so  much  as  some  of  them 
thought  perhaps,  but  in  each  case  to  a  very  real 
degree,  were  in  public  life  because  they  hoped 
to  serve  the  country.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
that  motive  seriously  influenced  Disraeli.  To 
turn  from  Peel's  papers  to  Disraeli's  political 
writings  or  his  greater  speeches  is  to  turn  from  the 
limited  outlook  of  a  year  or  a  generation,  of  a 
single  party  or  people,  to  that  of  all  political  time 
and  all  political  existence  ;  but  to  turn  from 
Disraeli's  letters  back  to  Peel's  is  to  turn  from  a 
world  of  vanity  and  intrigue  and  self-seeking  to 
one  of  unsparing  and  single-minded  devotion  to 
the  public  service. 

The  two  men  were  probably  too  unlike  ever 
to  have  acted  cordially  together.    Yet,  as  Mr. 


PEEL  AND   DISRAELI  53 

Monypenny  shows  in  this  volume,  it  was  some 
time  before  they  drew  apart.  Peel  went  out  of 
his  usual  way  to  applaud  loudly  the  famous  first 
speech,  and  to  say  that  it  was  "just  the  reverse  " 
of  a  failure  ;  he  was  very  civil  socially  to  Disraeli, 
paid  him  marked  compliments  in  the  Lobby, 
and  in  1840  invited  him  to  a  conference  of  Tory 
leaders  where  he  was  the  only  man  who  had  not 
held  office.  Even  so  late  as  1844  he  compli- 
mented him  in  a  speech,  and  his  sister  wrote  to 
Mrs.  Disraeli  and  urged  that  when  they  next 
met  the  younger  man  should  hold  out  his  hand, 
promising  that  the  older  would  gladly  accept  it. 
But  then  it  was  too  late.  That  may  or  may  not 
have  been  originally  due  to  the  refusal  of  office  in 
1841.  It  is  at  any  rate  fair  to  Disraeli  to  say  that 
he  continued  to  support  Peel  very  warmly  for 
two  years,  and  in  1843  went  down  to  Shrewsbury 
and  made  a  great  defence  of  Peel,  and  especially 
of  his  moderate  Free  Trade  measures  of  1842, 
declaring  both  against  high  protection  and  against 
unconditional  abolition  of  the  duties,  and  in- 
sisting on  commercial  reform  as  the  traditional 
Tory  policy  from  the  days  of  Shelburne  and 
Pitt,  with  reciprocity  as  an  essential  part  of  it. 
This  and  other  speeches  made  at  the  same  time 
at  any  rate  show  that  Disraeli  was  in  no  hurry 
to  desert  Peel,  though  he  publicly  promised  his 
constituents  that  he  would  do  so  if  Peel  broke  his 
pledges.  It  is  far  from  being  proved,  therefore, 
that  the  motive  of  his  revolt  was  revenge.  But 
why  had  Peel  excluded  him,  after  so  many  marks 
of  confidence  ?  Was  it  because,  as  was  customary 

E 


54  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

in  those  days,  the  great  families  absorbed  all  the 
spoils  as  a  matter  of  course  ?  Or  was  it,  as  is 
still  customary,  that  the  principle  of  the  claim  of 
the  man  to  the  office,  which  makes  all  bad 
appointments,  was  dominant  over  that  of  the 
claim  of  the  office  to  the  best  man  who  can  be 
found,  which  makes  all  good  ones  ?  Apparently 
it  was  neither.  Mr.  Monypenny  makes  two 
interesting  revelations  on  the  subject.  First 
he  tells  us,  on  the  high  authority  of  George 
Smythe,  Disraeli's  intimate  friend  and  Peel's 
subsequent  colleague,  that  Peel  wished  to  give 
Disraeli  office.  And  he  adds,  on  the  authority 
of  Lord  Houghton,  that  the  man  who  prevented 
his  doing  so  was  Stanley,  soon  to  be  Peel's  rival 
and  Disraeli's  leader,  but  at  that  moment  so 
hostile  to  Disraeli  that  he  declared  that  "  if  that 
scoundrel  were  taken  in  he  would  not  remain 
himself."  Three  years  later,  whether  in  con- 
scious revenge  or  not,  Disraeli  used  of  Stanley 
the  famous  phrase  which,  first  uttered  in  contempt, 
has  survived  as  a  compliment.  "  The  noble 
lord  is  the  Prince  Rupert  of  Parliamentary  dis- 
cussion :  his  charge  is  resistless  :  but  when  he 
returns  from  the  pursuit  he  always  finds  his 
camp  in  the  possession  of  the  enemy."  Such 
were  the  strange  beginnings  of  the  long  association 
between  the  two  men  who  were  to  share  the 
leadership  of  a  party  for  over  twenty  years  ;  and 
such  are  the  ironies  of  political  life.  A  still  more 
curious  one  is  given  by  Mr.  Monypenny  in  a  note 
which  relates  how  in  1877  Peel's  daughter-in- 
law  wrote  to  Lord  Beaconsfield,  much  as  Mrs. 


DISRAELI'S   MARRIAGE  55 

Disraeli  had  written  to  Peel,  to  inform  him  that 
her  husband  was  "  most  anxious  to  serve  "  him 
in  the  event  of  a  vacancy  in  his  Ministry. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  there  is 
nothing  in  this  volume  but  the  story  of  the  rela- 
tions between  Disraeli  and  Peel.  On  the  contrary, 
there  are  many  other  things — his  marriage, 
two  of  his  three  greatest  novels,  his  leadership 
of  "  Young  England,"  his  curious  and  rather 
ambiguous  intimacy  with  Louis  Philippe,  and  a 
whole  series  of  speeches  in  which  his  political 
genius  is  seen  at  its  highest.  The  most  inte- 
resting personal  event  is,  of  course,  his  marriage 
with  Mrs.  Wyndham  Lewis,  the  widow  of  his 
colleague  in  the  representation  of  Maidstone. 
His  financial  position  was  always  embarrassed, 
and,  when  he  married  a  woman  twelve  years 
older  than  himself  but  endowed  with  four  or 
five  thousand  a  year,  the  world  of  course  said 
that  he  had  married  for  money.  And  the  world 
was  no  doubt  so  far  right  that  he  would  probably 
not  have  married  her  if  her  income  had  been 
counted  only  by  hundreds.  She  herself  used  to 
say  laughingly  in  later  years,"  Dizzy  married  me 
for  my  money,  but  if  he  had  the  chance  again  he 
would  marry  me  for  love."  He  also  sometimes 
said  much  the  same  ;  and  he  wrote  to  her,  six 
months  before  the  marriage,  in  the  only  serious 
quarrel  they  ever  had,  "  I  avow,  when  I  first 
made  my  advances  to  you,  I  was  influenced  by 
no  romantic  feelings."  But,  as  Mr.  Monypenny 
well  says,  it  was  characteristic  of  the  man,  as 
indeed  of  all  men  of  the  world,  to  acquiesce  in 


56  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

explanations  of  his  conduct  which  attributed 
more  importance  than  was  the  fact  to  lower 
motives  and  less  to  higher  ;  and  no  woman  says 
her  husband  married  her  for  money  unless  she  is 
quite  sure  he  did  not.  No  doubt  he  was  no  more 
unwilling  than  any  other  man  that  his  wife  should 
have  a  good  income  ;  but  the  answer  to  the 
baser  accusation  is  threefold.  First,  that  he 
evidently  felt  a  considerable  attraction  for  Mrs. 
Lewis  during  her  husband's  life,  when  he  could 
not  have  thought  either  of  her  hand  or  of  her 
money ;  second,  that  during  the  quarrel  already 
mentioned  he  wrote  her  a  letter  ridiculing  her 
fortune,  a  risk  a  mere  fortune-hunter  would 
scarcely  have  run  ;  and,  third,  that  all  through  his 
life  he  was  admittedly  the  most  devoted  and 
admiring  of  husbands.  It  is  true  that  none  of 
the  three  arguments  is  conclusive  ;  but  together 
they  at  least  entitle  him  once  more  to  the  "  benefit 
of  the  doubt."  In  any  case,  it  is  certain  that, 
whatever  its  motive,  his  marriage  was  by  far  the 
most  fortunate  event  in  his  private  life  with 
which  he  had  himself  anything  to  do.  Its  only 
possible  rival  was  what  was  done  for  him  by  those 
foolish  Elders  of  the  Bevis  Marks  Synagogue 
who  forced  a  quarrel  on  his  father  and  led  to 
the  young  Benjamin's  being  carried  to  the 
Christian  font,  which  was  then  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  a  political  career. 

Mr.  Monypenny  has  devoted  much  less  space 
to  his  hero's  private  life  in  this  volume  than  in 
the  last.  Perhaps  he  is  right.  In  some  respects, 
indeed,  Disraeli  always  wanted  a  public  stage 


PRIVATE  LIFE  57 

to  be  seen  to  advantage.  Genius,  courage,  and 
ability,  of  which  he  had  so  much,  find  their  best 
or  only  field  in  public  life.  It  is  other  qualities 
of  which  he  had  little — such  things  as  simplicity 
and  intimacy — which  make  the  charm  of 
descriptions  of  private  life.  To  be  perfectly 
simple  and  direct,  either  in  word,  act,  or  feeling, 
was  at  all  times  almost  impossible  to  him, 
whether  in  great  things  or  small.  And  his 
intimacies  were  very  few.  His  sister  and  his 
wife  seem  to  have  been  at  this  time  the  only 
people  to  whom  he  wrote  or  spoke  with  perfect 
directness,  without  any  ulterior  object,  in  the 
simple  desire  of  giving  and  receiving  pleasure. 
All  the  other  letters  have  a  note  in  them  which 
suggests  that  the  recipients  were  something  more 
or  less  than  friends,  his  patrons,  his  tools,  or  his 
present  or  future  political  allies.  Their  interest 
is  public,  not  private.  And  few  readers  will 
regret  to  find  here  fewer  letters  of  foreign  travel, 
the  most  tedious  phase  of  biography.  Even  the 
small  social  details — and  some  of  those  given 
here  are  very  small :  "  I  went  down  to  Rosebank 
to  a  petit  bal  given  by  the  Londonderrys  " — 
are  more  interesting  because  more  significant  of 
the  man  than  the  foreign  letters.  Of  course, 
Disraeli  no  more  travelled  than  he  dressed  or 
dined  or  spoke  exactly  like  other  men.  But  his 
letters  from  abroad  necessarily  go  over  common 
ground  and  give  us  less  of  himself  than  of  the 
sights  he  saw.  And  it  is  himself  that  we  want. 
Of  that  his  biographer  cannot  give  us  too  much. 
So  even  the  apparently  trifling  social  doings  and 


58  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

feelings  recorded  here  have  their  importance. 
For  they  show  us  that  the  mysterious  and 
oracular  Disraeli  was  a  man  of  pleasure  as  well 
as  a  man  of  genius  ;  and  the  difficulties  he  had 
to  conquer  in  his  political  struggle  are  illustrated 
by  his  frank  confessions  of  triumph  over  the 
invitations  he  received  from  great  ladies  and  the 
compliments  paid  him  by  great  men.  The 
taste  for  material  magnificences  which  he  retained 
to  the  end,  and  which,  though  shared  by  many 
Englishmen,  was  in  him  regarded  as  un-English 
and  Oriental,  is,  of  course,  conspicuous  ;  and  we 
hear  a  good  deal  in  the  letters  about  gold  plate 
and  fine  liveries. 

Another  thing  which  was  in  him  to  the  end  is 
also  illustrated  in  this  volume,  his  inborn  gifts  as 
a  courtier.  Nothing  in  Mr.  Monypenny's  story 
is  more  curious  than  the  account  of  Disraeli's 
relations  with  Louis  Philippe.  Disraeli  went  to 
Paris  in  1842,  a  young  and  unofficial,  though 
well-known,  member  of  Parliament.  The  Court 
was  in  mourning  ;  but,  though  great  personages 
like  "  the  Ailesburys,  the  Stanhopes,  and  Russian 
Princes  "  could  not  obtain  a  reception,  Disraeli 
had  several  long  private  audiences  with  the 
King.  It  is  strange  reading  to  the  present 
generation  to  find  a  foreign  Sovereign  anxious 
to  balance  an  uncertain  position  at  home  by  the 
support  of  the  English  Ministry  and  House  of 
Commons.  And  it  is  stranger  still,  and  not 
altogether  satisfactory,  to  find  Disraeli  submitting 
to  the  King  a  Memorandum  as  to  the  ways  and 
means  of  arousing  sympathy  in  England,  and 


LOUIS  PHILIPPE  59 

hinting  at  the  expense  involved  in  action  either 
in  Parliament  or  in  the  Press.  But  it  is  evident 
that  his  efforts  were  entirely  devoted  to  the 
patriotic  object  of  creating  a  better  understanding 
between  the  two  countries  ;  as  they  were  again 
in  1845,  when  Louis  Philippe's  dislike  of 
Palmerston  was  supposed  to  make  his  return  to 
office  difficult  or  impossible,  and  Disraeli  did 
his  best  to  make  things  smoother  by  talking  to 
the  King  and  writing  to  Palmerston.  The  whole 
episode  is  very  curious — the  most  curious  point 
of  all  being  the  apparent  admission  on  all  hands 
that  a  foreign  Sovereign's  favour  could  be 
valuable,  and  almost  necessary,  to  an  English 
Minister. 

But  of  course  the  most  important  thing  in  the 
book  is  what  it  shows  us  of  the  development  of 
Disraeli's  political  ideas,  and  their  illustration 
in  his  speeches  and  in  the  two  great  novels. 
It  is  here  also  that  Mr.  Monypenny  is  seen 
at  his  best.  His  introductory  dissertations  on 
such  subjects  as  the  "  condition  of  England  " 
after  the  Reform  Act,  the  Corn  Law  controversy, 
the  Tory  Idea,  the  character  and  personality  of 
Peel,  and  others,  are  admirably  written  and  lift 
the  book  above  the  level  of  a  mere  biographical 
record.  Many  of  these  topics  are  still  matters 
of  dispute,  and  not  everybody  will  accept  Mr. 
Monypenny 's  view  of  them  ;  but  everybody 
will  agree  that  what  he  writes  shows  real  and 
wide  knowledge  as  well  as  that  living  insight 
into  his  subject  which  belongs  only  to  those  who 
care  as  well  as  know.  And  he  is  at  least  as 


60  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

impartial  as  can  be  expected  of  Disraeli's  bio- 
grapher, who  may  fairly  be  excused  for  not 
letting  "  the  Whig  dogs  have  the  best  of  it." 
No  man,  indeed,  who  has  been  living  for  months 
among  the  splendid  lights  and  large  spaces  of 
the  Disraelian  political  ideas  can  be  expected 
to  do  full  justice  to  the  dull  probity  of  Peel  and 
the  narrow  earnestness  of  Cobden,  or  to  show 
any  mercy  to  the  emptiness  and  incapacity  of  the 
Whigs.  The  illumination  that  comes  from 
Disraeli  is  no  doubt  occasionally  of  the  nature 
of  limelight ;  but  when  all  deductions  have  been 
made  it  remains  true  that  in  the  novels  and 
speeches  dealt  with  in  this  volume  alone  there 
is  more  matter  for  political  thought  than  in  all 
the  utterances  of  all  the  other  English  statesmen 
of  the  nineteenth  century  put  together.  Alone, 
almost,  of  English  statesmen,  certainly  in  marked 
contrast  to  his  two  great  rivals,  Peel  and  Glad- 
stone, Disraeli  looked  upon  politics  as  a  universal 
science.  While  their  East  and  West  meant 
Norfolk  and  Devonshire,  his  meant  the  Old 
World  and  the  New.  While  their  before  and 
after  meant  the  last  Session  and  the  next, his  meant 
the  age  of  the  Patriarchs  or  the  Romans  and  the 
final  destinies  to  which  free  government  may  be 
led  in  the  ultimate  future.  Burke,  a  far  greater 
mind,  partly  because  a  more  sober,  sincere,  and 
exact,  is  his  only  rival  among  English  statesmen  as 
a  political  thinker.  No  one  who  reads  Disraeli's 
books  with  open  eyes  can  for  a  moment  suppose 
them  to  be  merely  the  work  of  a  self-advertising 
political  adventurer.  An  adventurer  would  not 


COURAGE  AND  ORIGINALITY     61 

have  denounced  his  own  party  as  "  an  organised 
hypocrisy "  or  irritated  the  class  whom  he 
meant  to  lead  by  saying  that  he  had  "  never 
heard  of  a  peer  with  an  ancient  lineage."  Disraeli 
had  many  faults  but  his  mind  was  an  ever- 
flowing  fountain  of  ideas ;  and  where  ideas 
exist  they  are  never  deterred  from  flowing  by 
the  consideration  that  they  may  drown  their 
friends.  So  the  young  spokesman  of  the  feudal 
aristocracy  did  not  hesitate  to  impress  upon  his 
noble  friends  that  it  was  the  very  essence  of 
feudalism  to  make  the  tenure  of  property  depend 
upon  the  performance  of  its  duties.  So  the 
leader  of  the  protectionist  squires  put  aside  the 
cry  of  "  burdens  on  the  land  "  and  said  that 
those  who  had  great  honours  must  expect  great 
burdens.  So  the  Tory  apologist  held  out  his 
hand  to  the  hated  Chartists  and  had  the  courage, 
as  well  as  the  brains,  to  take  a  view  of  the  social 
revolution  of  which  Lord  Morley  has  said  that 
it  was  "  wider  if  it  did  not  go  deeper  than  that  of 
any  other  contemporary  observer."  So,  once 
more,  the  future  leader  of  the  party  that  had 
opposed  the  Reform  Bill  was  already  contem- 
plating the  bestowal  of  political  power  on  an 
"  educated  and  enfranchised  people."  In  all 
these  matters  he  can  scarcely  be  refused  the 
credit  of  seeing  further  than  any  of  his  rivals. 
The  author  of  "  Sybil  "  stood  almost  alone  in 
his  clear-sighted  protest  against  the  narrow 
commercialism  of  that  day,  the  ugly  results  of 
which  are  the  chief  difficulty  of  our  own.  He 
more  than  any  one  else  saw  that  the  Corn  Law 


62  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

difficulty  was  no  mere  economic  question  of 
rents,  as  the  Protectionists  thought,  or  of  profits, 
as  their  opponents  thought,  but  involved  large 
political,  social,  and  international  considerations 
as  to  what  was  to  be  held  the  healthiest  state  of 
national  existence.  He,  again  almost  alone  in 
that  day,  knew  that  history,  imagination,  and  the 
national  idea  must  play  a  large  part  in  the 
politics  of  any  great  people.  And  he  saw  the 
potentialities  for  the  highest  service  that  lay, 
increasingly  ignored,  in  the  ancient  Monarchy 
of  England. 

The  question  of  most  practical  interest  perhaps, 
as  one  looks  back  on  all  this  after  seventy  years, 
is  whether  the  accidents  that  denied  Disraeli  any 
chance  of  putting  his  political  ideas — a  creed,  as 
he  always  called  them,  not  a  mere  programme — 
to  the  test  of  practice  was,  or  was  not,  one  of 
those  great  lost  opportunities  with  which  the 
pages  of  history  are  strewn.  When  he  did 
reach  power  the  hour  for  action  was  past  and 
the  actor's  failing  energies  were  fully  employed 
elsewhere.  What  would  have  happened  if  he 
had  had  in  1854  tne  position  which  did  not 
come  till  1874  ?  It  is  interesting  to  ask  such 
questions,  but,  of  course,  impossible  to  answer 
them.  Disraeli  had  courage  enough  for  any- 
thing ;  but  had  he  character  enough,  had  he 
enough  patience  of  detail,  to  force  upon  a 
"  stupid  "  party  the  reforms  which  would  have 
prevented  the  great  towns  continuing  to  develop 
in  the  wretched  conditions  he  had  set  forth  in 
"  Sybil  "  ?  He  probably  really  cared  about  this 


WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN        63 

question ;  and  certainly  he  cared  about  the 
maintenance  of  a  healthy  and  manly  rural 
population.  Probably  he  would  not  have  ignored 
the  whole  problem,  as  the  complacent  commer- 
cialism of  the  Whigs  did  ;  but  had  he  the  driving 
power  needed  to  make  the  landed  class  take  long 
views  and  accept  sacrifices  for  the  purpose  of 
creating  a  peasantry  out  of  a  horde  of  landless 
labourers  ?  We  are  on  surer  ground  where 
the  way  was  clearer  as  in  the  question  of  national 
defence.  If  he  had  been  in  power  in  the  sixties 
England,  one  may  be  certain,  would  not  have 
cut  the  sorry  figure  she  did  in  1864  and  in  1870. 
It  is  certain,  again,  that  he  would  have  insisted 
on  keeping  the  House  of  Lords  a  living,  visible, 
and  active  part  of  the  Constitution,  and  would 
never  have  let  it  fall  into  that  silence  of  senile 
decay  which  was  almost  imposed  upon  it  by  the 
over-worked  indifference  of  Lord  Salisbury. 
And  the  Monarchy  ?  As  to  that,  he  certainly 
would  never  have  admitted  the  view  now  given 
out  with  semi-official  authority,  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  Sovereign  to  accept  without  demur  or 
question  any  policy  proposed  to  him  by  his 
Ministers  ;  nor  indeed  would  Queen  Victoria 
or  any  of  her  Prime  Ministers.  He  did  something 
for  a  higher  ideal  in  his  last  years  ;  and,  if  he  had 
had  power  in  his  more  vigorous  days,  he  might 
have  endeavoured  to  assert  the  true  position  of 
the  Sovereign  as  no  mere  conduit  pipe  for  the 
issue  of  Cabinet  decrees,  but  a  real  political 
force,  the  permanent  adviser  of  both  parties, 
an  adviser  almost  inevitably  preserved  by  his 


64  DISRAELI,  1837-1846 

position  from  sharing  the  narrowness  of  either. 
But,  whether  or  not  he  had  the  capacity  for 
these  things,  the  real  opportunity  for  them  was 
not  given  him.  For  posterity  he  will  be  greater 
as  a  political  thinker,  and  as  a  gladiator  in  the 
Parliamentary  arena,  than  as  a  constructive 
statesman. 


Ill 

THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF 
DISRAELI,  1846-1855* 

THE  third  volume  of  the  great  Life  of  Disraeli  f 
has  a  new  name  on  its  title-page.  The  author 
of  the  first  two  died  very  soon  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  second.  He  had  laid  a  good  founda- 
tion for  the  great  edifice,  and  all  his  readers 
heard  with  regret  of  the  premature  death  which 
prevented  his  building  upon  it.  That  task  has 
now  fallen  to  a  friend  and  colleague,  much  older 
than  himself,  who,  before  Mr.  Monypenny  had 
ever  written  a  line  of  any  sort,  had  already 
attained  what  readers  of  The  Times  may  be 
pardoned  for  thinking  the  highest  position  open 
to  an  English  journalist.  It  was  known  that 
Mr.  Monypenny  had  throughout  his  work  been 
in  frequent  consultation  with  Mr.  Buckle,  and 
there  was  no  surprise  mingled  with  the  general 
approval  which  greeted  the  announcement  that 
Mr.  Buckle  had  been  entrusted  with  the  difficult 
task  of  completing  his  friend's  work.  Mr. 
Monypenny's  name  still  remains  on  the  title- 
page  of  the  present  volume,  but  it  appears  that 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  November  26,  1914. 

t  "  The  Life  of  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield," 
by  William  Flavelle  Monypenny  and  George  Earle  Buckle. 
Volume  III.,  1846-1855.    (Murray.    125.  net.) 
65 


66  DISRAELI,  1846-1855 

nothing  in  it  except  part  of  the  chapter  on 
"  Tancred  "  owes  more  to  him  than  the  classifi- 
cation of  its  material. 

It  is  never  easy  to  take  up  another  man's 
work,  but  it  may  be  said  at  once  that  Mr.  Buckle 
has  succeeded.  The  new  volume  will  be  eagerly 
read  by  all  who  read  its  predecessors,  and 
certainly  not  with  less  enjoyment.  It  has  the  same 
lucidity  as  they,  the  same  fairness  of  mind,  the 
same  wide  knowledge  of  English  political  history, 
the  same  reassuring  quietness  of  judgment.  And 
in  continuing  a  work  which  he  did  not  plan  or 
begin  Mr.  Buckle  has  admirably  escaped  both 
the  opposite  dangers  of  a  breach  of  continuity 
and  of  sinking  his  personality  in  that  of  his 
predecessor.  If  he  has  erred  in  either  direction, 
it  is  rather  in  the  latter  than  the  former.  Few 
men  have  had  a  closer  knowledge  than  he  of 
the  world  of  English  politics  since  1886.  The 
interest  of  the  present  volume  is  often  heightened 
by  allusions  to  the  later  history  of  questions 
already  discussed  in  the  forties  and  fifties.  But 
Mr.  Buckle  might  well  go  farther  in  this  direction 
in  his  next  volume.  The  greatness  of  English 
politics  lies  in  their  continuity.  And  much  of 
their  interest  belongs  to  the  same  quality.  The 
peculiar  success  of  Lord  Rosebery's  "  Pitt " 
was  by  no  means  all  due  to  its  author's  literary 
gift ;  it  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
been  Prime  Minister,  and  that  his  readers 
could  everywhere  detect  allusions  to  the  political 
situation  of  their  own  day  and  to  the  author's 
own  experiences  and  opinions.  Mr.  Buckle  has 


MR.  BUCKLE  67 

not  been  Prime  Minister.  But  for  over  twenty 
years  he  had  special  opportunities  of  knowing 
the  political  and  personal  problems  which 
beset  Prime  Ministers,  the  constant  difficulty 
for  all  public  men  of  adjusting  the  difficult 
balance  between  individual  convictions  and  the 
just  claims  of  party  loyalty,  the  ignoble  intrigues 
and  the  honourable  self-surrenders  which  are 
always  going  on  behind  the  fair  scene  of  confi- 
dence and  unanimity  which  all  Ministries  try 
to  present  to  the  public.  These  things  are  the 
very  stuff  of  this  volume,  and  will  be  of  its 
successors.  Let  Mr.  Buckle  have  the  courage 
not  to  confine  himself  too  rigidly  to  the  role  of 
a  narrator.  Let  him  come  more  frankly  forward 
as  a  critic  and  a  political  thinker.  He  will  be 
all  the  better  biographer  for  bringing  the  light 
of  his  own  times  and  his  own  observation  to 
bear  on  the  contemporary  materials  out  of 
which  he  has  to  construct  his  book. 

And  he  may  find  the  needed  space  for  a  freer 
personal  intervention  by  retrenchments  in  other 
directions.  The  only  two  criticisms  that  can 
be  made  on  his  work  are  just  those  to  which 
Mr.  Monypenny  was  also  open.  There  is  too 
little  of  himself  and  too  much  of  Disraeli.  He 
seems  often  afraid  of  giving  us  anything,  how- 
ever interesting,  of  his  own  ;  he  is  never  afraid 
of  giving  us  anything  and  everything,  however 
uninteresting,  about  his  hero.  Seventeen  pages 
will  be  found  by  most  people  a  good  deal  more 
than  enough  about  the  history  of  a  weekly 
newspaper  called  The  Press  which  Disraeli 


68  DISRAELI,  1846-1855 

founded  and  supported  for  a  few  years  ;  and 
the  few  words  in  which  Lord  Morley  dismissed 
a  certain  rather  sordid  squabble  between  Glad- 
stone and  Disraeli  about  Downing  Street 
furniture  show  a  juster  sense  of  proportion  than 
the  four  pages  which  Mr.  Buckle  devotes  to  it. 
Other  instances  might  be  given.  Perhaps  Mr. 
Buckle  feels  himself  bound  by  the  biographical 
scale  set  by  his  predecessor.  But  may  he  not 
be  overlooking  more  important  considerations  ? 
This  volume  only  carries  us  over  nine  years. 
It  shows  us  Disraeli  arriving  with  difficulty 
first  at  the  leadership  of  his  party  in  the  Commons, 
then  at  the  second  place  in  a  Cabinet.  He  was 
yet  to  live  twenty-six  years,  during  which  he 
was  twice  Prime  Minister  and  one  of  the  most 
important  figures  on  the  stage  of  European 
politics.  If  the  present  scale  is  maintained, 
can  the  book  ever  be  finished  ?  And  if  it 
is,  will  any  library  be  able  to  find  room 
for  it  ? 

I 

The  new  volume  gives  us  Disraeli  at  last  in 
office,  but  it  contains  nothing  so  exciting  as  the 
campaign  against  Peel  which  was  the  principal 
subject  of  its  predecessor.  It  takes  us  through 
the  troubled  and  uncertain  period  which  lasted 
from  the  fall  of  Peel  to  the  beginning  of  the  ten 
years'  supremacy  of  Palmerston.  For  Disraeli 
it  was  a  time  of  steadily  increasing  political 
importance.  In  1846  he  was  merely  the  brilliant 
gladiator  who  had  given  the  mortal  stab  to  Peel. 


DISRAELI'S   THREE  TASKS        69 

In  1855  he  had  led  his  party  in  the  Commons  for 
several  years,  had  led  the  House  itself  for  several 
months,  and  had  been  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. It  was  no  small  thing  to  have  got  so 
far  ;  but  nine  years  are  a  long  slice  out  of  a  man's 
political  life,  and  there  is  plain  evidence  that 
Disraeli  often  felt  that  the  prize  might  come 
too  late  or  never  come  at  all.  During  these 
years,  and  especially  after  the  death  of  Lord 
George  Bentinck  had  left  the  leadership  in  the 
Commons  vacant,  he  had  three  tasks  to  achieve. 
He  had  to  convince  his  party  that  he,  and  he 
alone,  could  lead  them  ;  he  had  to  make  them 
go  his  way  and  not  their  own  ;  and  he  had  to 
win  for  them  the  confidence  of  the  country  and 
the  resulting  victory  at  the  polls.  The  first  two 
he  in  the  main  accomplished  :  in  the  third  he 
failed.  The  surprising  thing,  as  we  look  back, 
is  not  the  failure  but  the  success.  He  had  in 
his  path  at  least  five  immense  obstacles  :  the 
inveterate  hostility  of  the  Peelites  ;  the  laziness 
and  indifference  of  Lord  Derby  ;  the  damnosa 
hcereditas  of  Protection  ;  the  misfortune  of  having 
to  lead  a  party  which  understood  few  of  his 
ideas  and  could  provide  him  with  no  help  in 
debate  ;  and  above  all  the  eccentricity  of  his  own 
genius  and  character.  In  vain  did  he  buy  a 
landed  property,  discard  flowered  waistcoats, 
and  attend  farmers'  dinners.  All  could  see 
that  he  was  not  an  English  gentleman  in  the 
sense  that  all  other  statesmen  of  those  days  were  ; 
and  the  majority  suspected  that  flashy  clothes, 
flashy  novels,  and  even  Jewish  blood  were  not 

F 


70  DISRAELI,  1846-1855 

the  worst  of  the  things  which  had  separated  him 
from  English  gentlemen. 

Then  the  bitter  attacks  upon  Peel  which  had 
won  him  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  politicians 
were  one  of  the  chief  causes  that  kept  him  out 
of  real  power  for  five  and  twenty  years.  The 
Peelites  were  cold  and  self-righteous  people  of 
the  sort  that  never  finds  forgiveness  the  easiest 
of  the  virtues.  They  never  forgave  Disraeli, 
and  by  so  doing  they  made  a  strong  Conservative 
Ministry  impossible.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
if  Gladstone,  Graham,  and  Sidney  Herbert 
would  have  rejoined  their  party  in  1851,  1852, 
or  1855  it  would  have  at  once  recovered  that 
position  of  equality  with  the  Whig-Radical  enemy 
which  in  the  event  it  did  not  recover  till  1874. 
But  the  Peelites  hated  Disraeli  and  despised  his 
followers,  who  in  their  turn  detested  the  Peelites. 
Disraeli  himself,  like  all  men  whose  vision 
extends  beyond  the  passing  scene,  neither  shared 
nor  quite  understood  these  petty  animosities. 
He  was  prepared  to  serve  under  a  Peelite  or 
under  Palmerston,  as  was  twice  proposed,  if  by 
so  doing  he  could  assist  the  party.  But  neither 
plan  proved  possible.  Both  broke  on  the  fatal 
rock  of  Protection.  Palmerston  had  no  personal 
prejudices  against  Disraeli,  and  would  have 
accepted  the  leadership  in  1852  but  for  the 
dubious  attitude  of  Lord  Derby  on  the  question 
of  Protection  and  Free  Trade. 

Except  his  own  reputation,  this  was  Disraeli's 
greatest  difficulty.  He  very  soon  perceived 
that  Protection  in  the  landlord  and  farmer 


THE  RIGHT   OF  ADAPTATION     71 

meaning  of  the  word  was  not  only  "  dead  but 
damned."  All  through  the  first  half  of  this 
volume  he  is  seen  struggling  to  deliver  his 
leader  and  his  party  from  the  blindness  which 
still  fancied  that  Peel's  work  could  be  undone. 
In  this,  let  it  be  said  in  parenthesis,  he  was 
perfectly  justified.  In  the  first  place,  he  never 
had  been  a  believer  in  the  extreme  Protectionist 
theory.  But,  even  if  he  had  been,  he  had  the 
right  to  bow  to  the  chose  jugie.  Political  life 
would  be  impossible  if  a  man  of  honour  were 
bound  to  ruin  himself  and  his  party  by  obstin- 
ately trying  to  force  on  the  country  a  single  item 
of  his  political  creed  so  universally  unpopular 
that  the  very  mention  of  it  prevents  his  getting 
a  hearing  for  the  others.  A  man  may  even  to- 
day privately  believe  in  absolute  monarchy  or 
rotten  boroughs,  for  both  of  which  institutions 
there  is  much  to  be  said.  But  if  he  is  to  play  a 
part  in  public  affairs  he  must  leave  such  things 
alone.  A  statesman's  duty  is  to  take  a  large, 
even  a  bold,  view  of  the  possibilities  of  a  situation, 
and  then  to  aim  at  the  best  he  can  have  any 
hope  of  obtaining.  With  impossibilities  he  has 
nothing  to  do.  It  is  for  him  to  know  when  the 
pear  is  ripe,  and  then  to  pluck  it  instantly.  His 
intervention  in  the  process  of  ripening  it,  which 
belongs  to  others  in  less  responsible  positions, 
often  merely  delays  or  endangers  the  result.  It 
is  at  least  arguable  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  hasty 
action  in  1886  actually  delayed  Home  Rule  by 
the  passion  of  opposition  it  aroused,  and  that 
Mr.  Chamberlain's  crusade  in  1903  merely 


72  DISRAELI,   1846-1855 

stiffened  and  hardened  the  Free  Trade  sentiment 
of  the  country,  which  had  insensibly  weakened  in 
the  previous  generation  and  would  probably 
have  made  no  fierce  resistance  to  a  policy  of 
"  broadening  the  basis  of  taxation."  In  each 
case  at  any  rate  the  result  upon  the  fortunes  of 
the  party  and  of  the  other  policies  for  which  the 
party  stood  is  only  too  evident.  Pioneer  work 
of  this  kind  should  be  done  by  people  who  can 
be  repudiated. 

Disraeli's  difficulty,  however,  with  Lord  Derby 
was  not  that  he  anticipated  public  opinion,  but 
that  he  lagged  behind  it.  He  clung  to  Protection 
long  after  all  chance  of  reviving  it  had  passed 
away.  Disraeli  resisted  in  private  and  in  public  ; 
but  after  all  Derby,  and  not  he,  was  leader. 
Derby  was  lazy,  fonder  of  Homer  and  of  racing 
than  of  politics,  and  disinclined  to  those  social 
and  public  activities  which  might  have  at  once 
consolidated  his  party  and  taught  him  the  real 
mind  of  the  country.  Consequently  his  own 
mind,  to  the  despair  of  Disraeli,  did  not  move, 
and  naturally  ran  badly  in  harness  with  a  mind 
that  did.  The  result  was  that  the  party  coach 
stopped  at  the  Protectionist  stage.  And  the 
result  of  that  was  first  the  loss  of  Palmerston  and 
then  the  loss  of  the  General  Election  of  1852. 
Derby,  though  privately  converted,  postponed 
any  very  public  professions  of  the  sort  that  bind 
a  party  till  after  the  elections — that  is  to  say,  of 
course,  till  they  were  too  late  to  be  of  any  use. 
It  was,  in  fact,  none  of  his  opponents  but  his 
leader  who  prevented  Disraeli  from  having  a 


THE  LOST  OPPORTUNITIES       73 

chance  of  ruling  England  till  he  was  too  old  to 
use  it.  Derby,  like  most  magnates  who  have 
all  that  this  world  can  offer,  did  not  like  to  be 
bothered.  He  would  not  work  for  victory 
himself,  and  was  not  willing  to  let  Disraeli  do 
so.  He  had  not  the  courage  to  take  office  in 

1851,  nor  the  openness  of  mind  to  keep  it  in 

1852.  Worst  of   all,   he  let  the  ball  pass  to 
Palmerston  in  1855.     Disraeli  could  not  afford 
to  quarrel  with  him,  and  had  simply  to  swallow 
in  silence  the  bitter  cup  of  a  succession  of  lost 
opportunities. 

II 

It  is  the  common  tragedy  of  genius  to  spend 
life  in  creating  its  fit  surroundings  and  die 
before  it  can  use  or  enjoy  them.  That  was  not 
quite  Disraeli's  fate,  as  it  has  been  the  fate  of  so 
many  poets.  But  it  is  part  of  the  essence  of 
genius  to  be  original,  which  means  being  unlike 
other  people,  and  to  have  an  irresistible  need  of 
self-expression,  which  means  surprising  and 
offending  them.  Disraeli  had  all  this  in  him, 
quite  as  conspicuously  as  that  other  characteristic 
of  genius  which  has  led  to  its  being  defined  as 
a  capacity  for  taking  pains.  This  volume  is  a 
picture  of  the  struggle  between  the  two.  Disraeli 
is  shown  in  it  taking  upon  himself  all  the  trouble 
which  Derby  will  not  take.  We  see  him  con- 
ciliating men,  encouraging  them,  driving  them  ; 
we  see  him  thinking  and  reading  and  working. 
All  prudent  and  practical  measures  towards  the 


74  DISRAELI,   1846-1855 

attainment  of  success  he  will  take.  But  that  is 
not  the  whole  man.  He  must  be  allowed  to  be 
imprudent  too.  He  is  no  mere  Parliamentary 
manager  ;  he  is  a  man  of  ideas,  and  ideas  are 
irrepressible  things.  Consequently,  at  the  very 
moment  when  he  is  trying  to  convince  a  crowd 
of  country  squires  that  he  is  also  a  country 
gentleman  and  their  natural  leader,  he  must 
publish  "  Tancred."  The  greatest  of  his  diffi- 
culties was  that  he  was  a  Jew,  and  he  must  needs 
publish  a  book  which  is  one  prolonged  glorifi- 
cation of  Judaism.  He  was  distrusted  because 
he  was  not  understood  ;  and  by  way  of  winning 
the  confidence  of  church-going  Tories  he  offered 
them  an  identification  of  Judaism  and  Christianity 
and  a  solution  of  both  into  "  a  great  Asian 
mystery." 

Nor  was  his  originality  content  with  the 
comparatively  safe  channel  of  fiction.  He  went 
out  of  his  way  to  introduce  his  views  of  the 
mission  and  greatness  of  the  Hebrew  race  into 
his  "  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck."  Nay,  he 
made  his  mysterious  and  unpalatable  opinions 
the  matter  of  a  long  speech  in  the  very  House 
of  Commons  itself,  which  received  it  in  chilling 
silence.  So  faith  creates  the  mountains  which 
it  has  to  remove.  Whenever  Disraeli's  imagina- 
tion was  touched  he  cast  prudence  to  the  winds. 
Neither  the  grumbling  of  his  party  nor  the 
written  protest  of  Derby  prevented  his  insisting 
that  the  time  had  come  for  the  English  nation 
to  realize  the  vastness  of  the  responsibilities  it 
had  undertaken  in  its  Indian  Empire.  From 


HIS   UNIVERSAL   OUTLOOK        75 

first  to  last  Asia  could  move  him  more  than 
Europe.  India  was  a  part  of  Asia,  and  by  that 
bold  speech  in  1853  he  began  the  work  which 
he  crowned  twenty-three  years  later  when 
Queen  Victoria  assumed  the  title  of  Empress 
of  India.  But  at  the  moment  the  speech 
achieved  nothing  except  new  difficulties  for  the 
speaker. 

That  was  Disraeli  all  through.  Genius  is 
always  greater  than  the  business  it  undertakes 
to  do.  It  cannot  live  without  finding  for  itself 
its  indispensable  but  often  dangerous  escapes 
of  the  spirit  outside  and  above  the  field  in  which 
it  works  with  other  men.  So  Disraeli,  sparring 
with  competent  Parliamentarians  like  Wood  and 
Graham,  imposing  his  leadership  on  common- 
place Tories  like  Herries  and  Beresford,  doing 
this  necessary  business  and  doing  it  well,  cannot 
submit  to  be  confined  to  it.  The  result  is  that 
in  Mr.  Buckle's  hands,  as  in  Mr.  Monypenny's, 
he  appears  again  in  solitary  distinction  among 
English  statesmen,  as  the  one  man  who  took  a 
universal  view  of  politics  while  all  the  rest,  with 
the  partial  exception  of  Burke,  never  got  beyond 
an  English  or  at  widest  a  European  outlook. 
His  mind  refused  to  be  shut  up  in  the  question 
of  whether  Mr.  Speaker  was  or  was  not  to  be  got 
out  of  the  Chair.  He  was  the  keenest  of  party 
leaders,  but  he  never  could  help  looking  beyond 
the  prospects  of  the  Session.  He  thought  of 
the  current  problems  of  party  disputes  in  terms 
of  race  and  religion  and  the  essential  elements 
of  human  society,  and  when  speaking  about 


76  DISRAELI,   1846-1855 

what  was  to  be  done  next  year  in  England  his 
foreseeing  imagination  was  often  wondering  how 
the  expected  results  might  ultimately  be  affected 
by  what  would  happen  twenty  or  fifty  years  later 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe  or  perhaps  in  Egypt 
or  India.  In  the  midst  of  triumphant  commer- 
cialism he  turns  to  the  brooding  East  and  scoffs 
at  the  European  who 

talks  of  progress,  because  by  an  ingenious  ap- 
plication of  some  scientific  acquirements  he  has 
established  a  society  which  has  mistaken  comfort 
for  civilization. 

He  turns  from  the  Budget  of  1848  to  tell  Cobden, 
in  language  which  now  seems  almost  prophetic, 
that  it  is  madness  to  expect  universal  peace 
because  America  and  England  are  rich  and 
contented  ;  wars  are  made,  he  says,  "  not  by 
the  Powers  which  are  contented  and  satisfied, 
but  by  the  race  or  prince  who  agitates  for  a 
position."  So  in  the  same  year  he  made  a  still 
more  remarkable  prophecy.  The  Schleswig  dis- 
pute was  beginning,  and  Disraeli,  with  rare  but 
unluckily  very  transient  prescience,  brushed 
aside  the  ostensible  pretexts  for  the  action  of 
Prussia,  and  pointed  out  that  the  policy  adopted 
meant  an  eventual  challenge  to  England  on  the 
sea.  There  is  a  still  more  characteristic  prophecy, 
which  also  finds  its  fulfilment  in  the  Germany  of 
Nietzsche,  to  be  found  in  a  curious  passage  in 
the  "  Life  of  Bentinck,"  where  he  foresees  that 
the  intellectual  anarchy  of  atheism  may  lead  to 


PRIVATE  LIFE  77 

"  a  revival  of  old  national  idolatries,  modified 
and  mythically  dressed  up  according  to  the 
spirit  of  the  age." 

This  volume  is  much  more  exclusively  political 
than  its  predecessors.  But  there  are  some 
pictures  of  Disraeli's  private  life.  There  is  a 
chapter,  unnecessarily  long,  about  his  curious 
friendship  with  Mrs.  Brydges  Willyams,  giving 
the  letters  by  which  he  entertained  and  flattered 
that  eccentric  old  lady,  which  not  every  one 
will  find  so  "  graceful  "  as  Mr.  Buckle  considers 
them.  But  there  is  not  much  else  that  is  not 
politics  or  literature.  The  best,  perhaps,  is  a 
pleasant  little  picture  of  him  as  a  country  gentle- 
man, a  rdle  on  which  he  greatly  plumed  himself. 
Part  of  it  was,  no  doubt,  a  not  very  successful 
assumption  ;  but  at  least  in  his  woods  he  was 
entirely  at  home  in  his  own  special  way.  One 
would  like  to  have  heard  his  talks  with  his 
woodmen.  Not  the  least  characteristic  touch 
in  his  own  account  of  them  is  the  escape  from 
the  plantations  of  Hughenden  to  the  Forest  and 
the  Ocean  of  a  larger  world  : — 

I  like  very  much  the  society  of  woodmen.  .  .  . 
I  don't  know  any  men  who  are  so  complete  masters 
of  their  business  and  of  the  secluded  but  delicious 
world  in  which  they  live.  They  are  healthy,  their 
language  is  picturesque  ;  they  live  in  the  air  and 
Nature  whispers  to  them  many  of  her  secrets.  A 
Forest  is  like  the  Ocean,  monotonous  only  to  the 
ignorant. 

The  man  is  here,  in  these  few  words,  quite  as 
truly  as  in  any  of  the  long  Parliamentary  speeches  : 


78  DISRAELI,   1846-1855 

a  man  who  really  loved  both  Nature  and  the 
things  of  the  mind,  as  he  really  loved  England, 
but  who  could  never  be  quite  simple  and  natural 
in  his  language  about  any  of  them;  a  Jew, 
an  exotic,  a  man  of  genius,  whose  imagina- 
tion was  not  to  be  confined  within  any  park 
palings,  whether  of  Hughenden  or  of  the  House 
of  Commons. 


IV 

THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF 
DISRAELI,   1855-1868* 

FEW  people  will  find  this  volume  f  as  interesting 
as  its  predecessor.  Its  defect,  to  put  it  plainly, 
is  that  there  is  nothing  great  in  it.  There  is, 
indeed,  always  Disraeli's  miraculous  fertility  of 
cleverness  of  all  sorts,  and  that  may  itself  be 
considered  a  kind  of  greatness.  But  it  has  no 
longer  anything  really  great  to  do.  In  the 
second  volume  we  had  the  magnificent  daring 
of  the  single-handed  assault  upon  Peel  and  the 
invective  which  was  its  weapon,  a  swordlike  use 
of  the  tongue  which,  though  it  could  not  produce 
a  series  of  classics  like  Cicero's  Philippics,  far 
surpassed  Cicero  in  the  difficulties  it  had  to 
overcome  and  the  success  with  which  it  overcame 
them.  That  was  greatness  of  one  kind.  In  the 
third  volume  we  had  greatness  of  another  ;  with 
courage  again  perhaps  as  its  most  striking 
ingredient,  but  this  time  moral  courage — we  had 
the  publication  of  "  Tancred  "  in  1847  and  of 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  May,  n,  1916. 

t  "  The  Life  of  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield," 
by  George  Earle   Buckle,  in  succession  to  W.  F.  Mony- 
penny.    Volume  IV.,  1855-1868.    (Murray.     i2J.net.) 
79 


8o  DISRAELI,   1855-1868 

"  The  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck  "  in  1851. 
The  whole  of  the  one  and  the  most  remarkable 
chapter  in  the  other  were  devoted  to  the  proud 
vindication  of  the  glories  of  the  Jewish  race. 
And  they  came  from  a  man  whose  ambition  was 
to  be  Prime  Minister  of  England  and  who  well 
knew  that  the  principal  obstacle  in  his  path  was 
just  that  fact  that  he  was  a  Jew.  Is  there  in  all 
the  history  of  English  politics  a  single  instance 
of  a  venture  of  faith  greater  than  this,  involving, 
as  it  did,  the  risking  of  a  whole  career  for  the 
sake  of  convictions  outside  politics  which  most 
men  would  have  felt  they  were  in  no  way  called 
upon  to  obtrude  upon  the  public  to  their  own 
injury  ? 

But  in  this  volume  we  have  neither  the 
courage  of  the  gladiator  which  won  Disraeli 
his  place  in  politics  nor  the  greater  courage 
which  risked  it  for  a  higher  cause.  Here  he  is 
throughout  in  possession  of  the  leadership. 
There  are  frequent  grumblings,  and  he  is 
driven  more  than  once  to  offers  of  retirement, 
which  may  or  may  not  have  been  sincere.  But 
his  seat  on  his  difficult  and  thankless  throne  is 
not  in  fact  seriously  challenged.  Men  might 
distrust  and  dislike  him,  as  in  fact  they  did 
right  on  till  the  living  apotheosis  of  1874.  But 
by  this  time  it  was  plain  to  everybody  that  his 
genius  was  absolutely  indispensable  to  his  party. 
The  problem  now  was  how  to  turn  a  reluctant 
acquiescence  in  the  fact  of  his  superiority  into 
the  perfect  confidence,  devotion,  and  union 
which  is  the  ideal  relation  of  a  party  to  its  chief. 


DISRAELI  AND   HIS   PARTY       81 

It  was  obviously  not  an  easy  one.  Nothing  could 
make  a  Jew  who  was  half  mystic  and  half 
adventurer  the  natural  leader  of  Tory  squires 
and  parsons.  But  if  they  could  not  feel  the 
relation  a  natural  one,  as  indeed  they  never  did, 
the  thing  was  to  make  them  feel  it  not  only 
unavoidable,  which  on  the  whole  they  did,  but 
also  safe,  which  as  yet  on  the  whole  they  did  not. 
This  volume  is  the  record  of  Disraeli's  attempts 
to  perform  a  task  uncongenial  to  so  daring  a 
genius.  "  Playing  for  safety  "  is  not  an  inspiring 
business  at  any  time  ;  and  Disraeli's  method  of 
doing  it  by  appearing  in  the  House  of  Commons 
as  the  apostle  of  non-intervention,  of  general 
economy,  especially  in  Naval  and  Military 
Estimates,  and  of  a  Colonial  policy  which 
looked  upon  colonies  as  "  deadweights,"  may 
have  been  all  very  well  as  Parliamentary  Op- 
position to  Palmerston,  but  hardly  increases  our 
impressions  of  the  greatness  of  the  man.  And 
the  practice  which  he  adopted  at  this  time  of 
attending  diocesan  conferences  and  farmers' 
dinners,  where,  oddly  enough,  he  chose  to 
deliver  some  of  his  profoundest  speeches,  was 
probably  more  successful  in  giving  a  momentary 
interest  to  those  functions  than  in  securing  the 
settled  and  permanent  confidence  of  clergy  or 
farmers  in  the  strange  orator  who  gave  them  so 
much  more  wit  and  wisdom  than  they  could 
understand. 

Mr.  Buckle,  then,  has  here  scarcely  had  the 
material  for  a  volume  of  first-rate  interest. 
Throughout  it  his  hero  is  merely  holding  his 


82  DISRAELI,   1855-1868 

fortress.  There  is  another  disadvantage.  We 
are  far  more  confined  than  before  to  the  walls 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  And  there  never 
was  a  period  when  the  House  of  Commons  was 
less  inspiring.  Disraeli's  famous  phrase  was 
far  more  applicable  to  the  rule  of  Palmerston  in 
the  early  sixties  than  to  any  other  Ministry 
before  or  since.  Palmerston,  in  manner  the 
frankest  of  men,  was  as  Prime  Minister  the  very 
personification  of  "  organized  hypocrisy."  No 
one  really  knew  that  better  than  Gladstone  and 
Bright.  Yet  Gladstone  saved  him  by  becoming 
his  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  Bright 
twice  threw  Derby  and  Disraeli  out  in  his 
favour.  Derby  himself  would  take  no  steps  to 
turn  out  a  Minister  who  used  the  Whig  flag  and 
a  Liberal  army  to  play  the  Conservative  game 
far  more  effectively  than  any  Conservative  could 
play  it.  The  result  was,  of  course,  a  situation 
in  which  nothing  could  occur  except  small 
tactical  moves  based  on  opportunism.  And 
the  consequence  of  that  is  that  there  is  less  of 
the  original  and  spontaneous  Disraeli  in  this 
volume  than  there  was  in  those  which  went 
before  or  will  be  in  those  which  succeed  it.  In 
his  free  and  irresponsible  youth  he  might  say 
what  he  liked  because,  whatever  he  said,  every- 
body took  it  for  clever  nonsense  ;  in  his  old  age 
of  incense  and  adoration  he  might  say  what  he 
liked  because,  whatever  he  said,  everybody  took 
it  for  profound  wisdom.  Even  in  his  early 
middle  age  he  could  enjoy  the  great  escape  of 
"  Tancred."  But  in  the  sixties  the  only  substi- 


DISRAELI   AND  RELIGION         83 

tute  for  an  escape  which  he  could  enjoy  was  an 
hour  in  the  Sheldonian  Theatre  cracking  jokes 
against  Huxley  and  Colenso  among  the  rural 
clergy  and  the  Oxford  dons.  And  even  on  that 
occasion,  profound  and  amply  vindicated  by 
time  as  was  his  instinctive  distrust  of  mere 
intellectualism  in  religion  and  mere  materialism 
in  science,  there  is  still  a  taint  of  the  same 
"  playing  for  safety  "  in  nearly  all  he  said.  The 
speech  was  not,  like  "  Tancred,"  a  real  escape 
of  the  free  spirit  of  Disraeli.  It  was  partly  a 
sincere  expression  of  his  deeply  held  faith  in  that 
religion  of  the  spirit  which  was  the  gift  of  his 
race  to  the  world.  But  it  was  partly,  also,  a 
piece  of  more  or  less  dishonest  electioneering. 
For  no  one  knew  better  than  Disraeli  that  there 
was  much  more  than  "  provincial  arrogance  "  in 
Jowett  and  much  more  than  "  glib  assurance  "  in 
Huxley  and  Darwin.  "  Man  is  a  being  born  to 
believe."  So  he  truly  told  his  audience,  rightly 
warning  them  that  if  men  and  women  were  not 
allowed  to  believe  in  Christianity  they  would 
believe  in  something  else  which  philosophers 
might  find  even  more  irrational :  a  prophecy 
the  fulfilment  of  which  is  to  be  seen  in  our 
streets  as  well  as  in  our  books  and  newspapers. 
But  a  cynic  might  say  that  the  greatest  of  all 
proofs  that  man  was  born  to  believe  lay  in  an 
audience  of  clergymen  accepting  Disraeli  as  the 
champion  of  orthodoxy  as  they  understood  it  in 
the  year  1865. 

But  this  Oxford  adventure  is  only  an  oasis 
in  a  desert  of  political  manoeuvring.    The  book 


84  DISRAELI,   1855-1868 

is  given  to  thirteen  years  of  the  House  of  Commons 
about  ten  of  which  were  spent  in  an  Opposition 
which  had  often,  by  Derby's  command,  to  be 
half-hearted,  and  the  remaining  three  in  office 
indeed,  but  not  in  power.  That  is  the  story, 
and  it  cannot  be  a  very  exciting  one.  Mr.  Buckle 
does  all  that  can  be  done  for  it  by  a  good  selection 
and  arrangement  of  his  materials  and  by  a  lucid 
and  pleasant  style.  More,  perhaps,  could  have 
been  made  of  it  if  he  had  given  less  space  to  the 
chronicling  of  the  details  of  debates  and  political 
intrigues  and  more  to  a  large  discussion,  looking 
before  and  after,  of  the  really  vital  issues  in 
home,  Imperial,  and  foreign  affairs  which  lay 
concealed  under  these  Parliamentary  squabbles 
and  for  the  most  part  quite  unperceived  by  the 
squabblers.  To  that  accusation  no  English 
politician  stands  generally  less  open  than  Disraeli. 
More,  as  we  have  seen,  than  any  Englishman 
he  had  always  in  mind  that  Parliament  was  only 
a  part  of  England,  England  of  Europe,  Europe  of 
the  world.  And  the  present  never  occupied  him 
so  entirely  as  to  make  him  forget  that  it  came  out 
of  the  past  and  was  leading  to  the  future.  There 
is  an  interesting  letter,  quoted  here,  written  to 
Disraeli  by  his  Saxon  friend  Vitythum,  in  which 
he  says  that  after  living  fourteen  years  in  England 
he  was  "  struck  by  the  fact  that  you  appeared  the 
only  man  in  England  working  for  posterity. 
Your  genius  bore  to  my  eyes  always  the  historical 
stamp,  and  I  never  listened  to  a  speech  of  yours 
without  thinking,  this  word,  this  sentence,  will 
be  remembered  a  hundred  years  hence."  It  is 


THE  TEMPORARY   ECLIPSE        85 

the  language  of  friendship,  even  of  flattery  \ 
but  at  least  it  does  not  seem  absurd,  as  it  would 
now  if  we  found  it  in  a  letter  to  Palmerston  or 
Gladstone.  The  melancholy  truth,  however, 
is  that  even  this  greatest  of  Disraeli's  gifts 
suffered  some  eclipse  at  this  period  of  his  life. 
What  were  the  great  questions  that  came  up  in 
its  course  ?  The  only  domestic  problem  of 
importance  was  that  of  Reform,  Disraeli's  daring 
solution  of  which  is  the  most  striking  event 
recorded  in  this  volume.  But  it  was  not  home 
affairs,  but  India  and  America,  Italy  and  Prussia, 
that  provided  the  real  interest  of  the  time. 
How  did  Disraeli's  mind  respond  to  these 
problems  ? 

We  have  always  in  fairness  to  remember  that 
he  was  not  altogether  a  free  man,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  he  had  to  follow  Derby  and  to 
oppose  Palmerston.  That  must  be  borne  in 
mind,  and  is  no  doubt  the  key  to  many  speeches 
that  add  nothing  to  his  reputation.  But  it  can- 
not alter  the  fact  that  he  sho\vs  scarcely  a  sign  of 
prophetic  sympathy  with  Italy  (even  refusing  to 
meet  Garibaldi),  and  scarcely  a  sign  of  prophetic 
distrust  of  Prussia.  Like  his  correspondent 
King  Leopold,  he  utterly  misread  the  real  danger 
to  England  and  to  Europe.  He  was  frightened 
at  the  wholly  imaginary  menace  of  a  unity  of  the 
Latin  races  under  France,  and  was  blind  to  the 
other,  so  imminent,  and,  as  it  now  seems  to  us, 
so  certain,  of  a  unity  of  the  Germans  under 
Prussia.  He  was  even  mad  enough  in  1863  to 
imagine  Prussia  in  danger  of  partition,  and  to  say 

G 


86  DISRAELI,   1855-1868 

privately  in  1864  that  she  was  "  a  country  with- 
out any  bottom  and  could  not  maintain  a  real 
war  for  six  months."  In  Parliament,  in  spite  of 
some  misgivings  on  the  part  of  some  of  his 
colleagues,  he  took  the  line  of  peace  and  non- 
interference on  behalf  of  Denmark,  imagining 
that  to  go  to  war  with  Germany  was  to  "  make 
France  the  mistress  of  Europe."  No  doubt 
most  other  statesmen  were  equally  blind ;  but 
then  it  is  precisely  the  glory  of  Disraeli  that  he 
invites  a  higher  standard  of  judgment.  In  this 
case  he  saw  rather  less  than  the  others,  and 
appears  to  have  been  largely  influenced  by  the 
party  situation  and  the  fear  of  helping  Palmerston 
into  a  successful  war  of  which  he  said  the  Whigs 
would  get  all  the  credit. 

It  is  pleasanter  to  turn  away  from  Europe, 
for  the  farther  a  scene  lay  from  the  House  of 
Commons  the  more  clearly  it  was  seen  by  the 
true  Disraeli.  Even  in  this  rather  drab  and 
dreary  period  of  his  life  Disraeli  was  occasionally 
inspired  when  his  eyes  crossed  the  seas.  Did 
any  one  except  Burke  ever  make  such  a  speech 
on  the  hustings  as  that  Disraeli  made  in  1859, 
the  year  when,  as  Mr.  Buckle  aptly  notes,  both 
England  and  Prussia  were  rejoicing  over  the  birth 
of  the  boy  who  was  to  be  William  II.  ?  Which 
of  the  politicians  of  those  days  at  all  understood 
what  he  told  them  in  that  speech,  that,  whatever 
might  be  the  fate  of  Europe,  England  would 
still  have  "  an  illustrious  future  "  ?  England, 
he  said,  is  no  "  mere  Power  of  the  Old  World. 
Her  geographical  position,  her  laws,  her  language, 


DISRAELI   AND  THE  COURT       87 

and  religion  connect  her  as  much  with  the  New 
World  as  with  the  Old."  So  he  threw  all  his 
weight  into  keeping  the  peace  with  the  United 
States  in  the  crisis  of  1862,  and  not  only  was  it 
he  and  his  colleagues  who  against  the  Radicals 
created  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  but  he  went 
farther :  he  insisted  that,  though  no  longer 
bound  to  us  by  any  legal  tie,  even  the  United 
States  were  still  our  Colonies  and  might  still  be 
expected  to  be  our  natural  allies. 

In  this  field  (though  there  were  private  and 
momentary  stupidities  like  that  of  talking  of 
Colonies  as  "  deadweights  ")  we  do  get  glimpses 
of  the  great  Disraeli.  But  it  is  difficult  not  to 
suspect  that  his  attitude,  in  this  as  in  other 
matters,  was  partly  inspired  by  a  motive  to 
which  Mr.  Buckle  draws  no  attention.  Is  it 
merely  a  coincidence  that  on  all  these  questions 
— that  of  Italy,  that  of  Denmark  and  Schleswig, 
that  of  the  difficulty  with  the  United  States — 
Disraeli's  policy  was  the  policy  of  the  Court  ? 
Like  everything  else  with  Disraeli,  his  attitude 
towards  the  Queen  was  decided  by  a  compound 
of  self-interest  and  imagination.  From  the  first 
he  set  himself  to  win  the  favour  of  the  Court. 
That  there  was  no  element  of  sycophancy  or 
insincerity  in  his  way  of  doing  it  no  one  will 
assert  who  has  read  his  letters  to  the  Queen. 
The  one  which  in  this  volume  compares  the 
Prince  Consort  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  neither 
the  first  nor  the  last  of  its  kind.  No  doubt  he 
felt  that  the  Court  alone  could  give  him  the 
element  of  social  strength,  the  lack  of  which  was 


88  DISRAELI,   1855-1868 

one  of  his  principal  difficulties.  But  to  think 
that  this  was  all  is  the  easy  blunder  of  common- 
place cynics  who  will  never  understand  Disraeli. 
To  him  the  woman  who  sat  on  the  throne  of  the 
Plantagenets  was  necessarily  a  great  deal  more 
than  she  was  to  men  whose  vision  was  limited 
to  the  House,  the  clubs,  and  the  constituencies. 
The  Crown  touched  his  imagination  and  he 
believed  it  had  a  future  as  well  as  a  past.  And 
he  may  well  have  been  partly  influenced,  even  in 
his  blunders  about  Italy  and  Prussia,  by  a 
deliberate  desire  to  increase  the  weight  of  the 
Sovereign  in  the  shaping  of  English  policy. 

At  any  rate  there  is  no  doubt  that  there  was 
political  wisdom  as  well  as  imagination  in  his 
prescient  suggestions  about  the  right  position 
of  the  Sovereign  of  the  Indian  Empire.  Who 
but  he  was  capable  of  saying  in  1857,  "  You  can 
only  act  upon  the  opinion  of  Eastern  nations 
through  their  imagination  "  ?  And  who  but  he 
understood  that,  for  that  reason,  you  must  draw 
much  nearer  the  visible  relations  between  the 
peoples  of  India  and  "  their  real  Ruler  and 
Sovereign  Queen  Victoria  "  ?  The  speech  in 
which  these  words  occur  is  by  far  the  greatest 
in  this  volume.  Almost  every  word  Disraeli 
uttered  in  it  has  since  received  the  visible  seal 
and  sanction  of  the  event.  It  is  difficult  to 
overestimate  the  rich  harvest  which  the  British 
Empire  is  at  this  moment  reaping  from  the 
policy  of  the  Derby  Government  after  the  Mutiny, 
in  which  the  sympathy,  the  ideas,  and  the 
imagination  came,  of  course,  from  Disraeli, 


DISRAELI  AND   INDIA  89 

while  the  simple  and  noble  language  of  the 
great  Proclamation  which  inaugurated  the  new 
era  was,  it  seems,  the  contribution  of  the  scholarly 
Derby.  From  that  day  the  great  vision  of 
Burke  began  to  be  accomplished.  From  that 
day  we  have  seen  ourselves,  and  on  the  whole 
been  seen  by  the  natives  of  India,  to  be  in  India 
not  as  conquerors  but,  in  Disraeli's  words,  as 
protectors  "  of  the  laws  and  customs,  the  property 
and  religion  "  of  the  princes  and  peoples  of  that 
vast  country.  Twenty  years  later  Disraeli  put 
the  visible  crown  to  his  work  when  under  his 
auspices  Queen  Victoria  became  Empress  of 
India.  And  that  the  new  relation  has  been  no 
nominal  or  merely  ceremonial  change  has  been 
proved  by  the  great  success  of  the  present 
Emperor's  visit  to  India,  and  still  more  by 
India's  eager  and  generous  anticipation  of  the 
Emperor's  call  to  service  when  the  day  of  danger 
came  in  August,  1914. 

It  will  seem  strange  to  people  of  a  certain 
kind  that  it  should  have  been  possible  to  write 
so  much  about  this  volume  without  so  far  saying 
a  word  of  the  Reform  Act  of  1867.  No  doubt, 
looked  at  through  Parliamentary  and  electioneer- 
ing spectacles,  that  was  the  great  event  of  the 
time.  But  the  truth  is  that  in  these  tremendous 
days,  when  the  future  of  Europe  and  the  world 
is  being  decided  on  land  and  sea,  it  is  still  possible 
to  regard  the  birth  of  Italy  and  of  Prussia,  the 
new  birth  of  the  United  States,  of  Canada,  and 
of  India  as  great  events,  whereas  the  matter  of 
creating  a  few  thousands,  or  a  few  scores  of 


90  DISRAELI,    1855-1868 

thousands,  of  new  voters  seems  an  affair  of  very 
parochial  importance.  The  crucial  struggle 
about  Reform  was  decided  in  1832.  It  was 
impossible  to  go  so  far  without  ultimately  going 
further.  So  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867  is  a 
secondary  event  in  more  senses  than  that  of  the 
order  of  time.  No  doubt  the  admission  of  the 
wage-earner  to  a  great,  if  not  at  once  the  greatest, 
share  in  political  power  marks  an  important 
stage  in  our  constitutional  development.  But 
it  was  one  which  had  long  been  foreseen  by  all 
men  of  political  intelligence.  And  by  Disraeli 
it  had  been  welcomed  in  advance.  His  personal 
conviction  had  always  been  in  favour  of  going 
behind  and  through  the  middle  classes  of  1832 
and  calling  the  nation  as  a  whole  to  a  share  in 
the  national  counsels.  Still,  few  will  feel  that 
the  word  Reform  is  one  of  the  safest  to  inscribe 
on  the  banner  of  his  fame.  His  attitude  towards 
it,  like  that  of  everybody  else  except  Bright, 
lacked  sincerity  and  consistency.  And,  though 
his  passage  of  the  Bill  of  1867  was  striking 
proof  of  the  ascendancy  he  had  obtained  over 
his  party,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it  redounds 
very  greatly  to  the  credit  either  of  his  intellect 
or  of  his  character. 

The  death  of  Palmerston  made  it  certain 
that  the  question  of  Reform  would  speedily 
come  up  for  settlement.  What  ought  a  Con- 
servative leader  to  have  done  ?  Surely  he  ought 
to  have  recognized  that  on  the  one  hand  it  was 
necessary  to  make  some  advance,  while  on  the 
other  hand  it  was  desirable  not  to  go  too  fast  and 


THE   REFORM   BILL  OF   1867       91 

to  prevent  the  country  being  committed  to  the 
control  of  an  electorate  based  on  mere  numbers. 
Both  of  these  were  essential  Conservative 
principles  and  the  second  was  frequently 
emphasized  by  Disraeli.  What  happened  ?  He 
might  probably  have  secured  both,  and  he  did 
secure  neither.  Why  ?  Because,  like  the 
Liberals  in  1858,  he  cared  much  less  about 
settling  the  question  than  about  defeating  his 
opponents.  If  he  had  let  the  Russell- Gladstone 
Bill  pass,  that  moderate  measure  might  have 
adjourned  further  controversy  for  years.  But 
the  temptation  to  a  party  victory  followed  by 
office  was  too  great,  and  he  took  up,  in  alliance 
with  Lowe  and  the  Adullamites,  an  attitude  of 
more  or  less  uncompromising  resistance  to  the 
Bill  and  even  to  Reform  itself.  The  result  was 
that  the  Conservatives  gained  office  while  the 
Radicals  gained  power.  Disraeli  in  office  had 
to  go  a  great  deal  farther  to  satisfy  Bright  than 
Bright's  own  friends  had  been  willing  to  go. 
The  fact  is  that,  being  as  Mr.  Buckle  says 
"  always  an  opportunist  on  Reform,"  Disraeli 
had  neither  thought  out  a  scheme  nor  arranged 
for  Parliamentary  support  when  he  presented 
his  improvised  Bill  which  never  had  or  deserved 
to  have  a  real  majority  in  its  favour  and  was 
transformed  into  a  thoroughly  Radical  measure 
in  the  course  of  its  progress  through  the  House 
of  Commons.  The  party  accepted  the  daring 
manoeuvre  in  the  hope  of  "  dishing  the  Whigs  "  ; 
and  certainly  the  history  of  the  next  thirty  years 
vindicated  Disraeli's  confidence  in  the  national 


92  DISRAELI,   1855-1868 

spirit  of  the  working  man.  But  the  mere 
counting  of  heads  is  not  statesmanship,  and  the 
Act  of  1867  did  nothing  to  solve  the  fundamental 
problem  of  democracy,  which  is  how  to  give  the 
wage-earning  classes  a  great  share,  perhaps  it 
should  be  the  greatest,  in  political  power  without 
giving  them  the  whole. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  perhaps,  Mr.  Buckle  is 
too  inclined  to  hold  a  brief  for  his  hero,  who 
hardly  cuts  a  very  heroic  or  even  a  very  honour- 
able figure  as  he  introduces  into  the  Constitution 
Bright 's  principle  of  numbers,  in  which  neither 
he  nor  his  party  believed.  But  hero-worship  is 
a  venial  sin  in  a  biographer.  And  Mr.  Buckle 
commits  it  so  plausibly  and  pleasantly  that  he 
will  win  an  easy  indulgence  from  nearly  all  his 
readers.  They  will  warmly  congratulate  him  on 
the  steady  progress  he  is  making  in  his  great 
task.  He  is  quickening  his  pace  as  he  advances, 
and  the  goal  begins  almost  to  be  in  sight.  The 
last  volume  covered  nine  years.  This  covers 
thirteen.  In  1868  Disraeli  had  only  thirteen 
more  years  to  live  ;  so  perhaps  the  next  volume 
may  complete  the  picture.  If  so,  will  Mr. 
Buckle  remember,  before  he  lays  down  his  pen, 
to  give  us  more,  much  more,  than  he  has  yet 
given  of  Disraeli's  private  habits,  tastes,  and 
characteristics  ?  We  get  in  this  volume  a  few 
meagre  glimpses  of  these  small  things  that  tell 
one  more  than  speeches  of  what  the  inner  and 
essential  Disraeli  was.  We  see  him  offering 
prawns,  "  the  rosy-coloured  tribute  of  Torbay," 
to  Bishop  Wilberforce  ;  we  see  him  complaining 


SIGNIFICANT  TRIFLES  93 

of  official  ink  and  paper,  which  give  his  writing 
"  a  cheesemongerish  look  "  ;  we  see  him  mocking, 
as  Mr.  Gladstone  could  never  have  mocked,  at 
the  bald  heads  and  general  hideousness  of  the 
members  of  a  Statistical  Congress  ;  we  see  him 
turning  his  back  on  the  cheering  Carlton,  which 
wanted  him  to  be  its  guest  at  supper,  hurrying 
home  to  Mrs.  Disraeli,  who  had  "  got  him  a 
raised  pie  from  Fortnum  and  Mason's  and  a 
bottle  of  champagne,"  and  crying  to  her  as  he 
finished  his  supper,  "  Why,  my  dear,  you  are 
more  like  a  mistress  than  a  wife  !  "  But  these 
are  trifles,  however  significant,  and  there  are  only 
a  very  few  of  them.  Nor  is  any  of  them  so 
amusing  as  many  stories  about  Disraeli  which 
Mr.  Buckle  might  easily  have  heard  and  recorded. 
Not  so  amusing,  perhaps,  as  one  probably  un- 
known to  him,  which  is  told  by  a  lady  still 
living  to  whom  Lady  Beaconsfield  once  said : 
"  Ah,  people  may  say  what  they  like  about  the 
courage  of  public  men.  All  I  know  is  I  always 
have  to  pull  the  strings  of  Dizzy's  shower-bath  !  " 
Even  absurdities  of  this  kind  enliven  biography 
and  occasionally  illuminate  it.  Let  Mr.  Buckle 
not  forget  in  his  last  volume  that  he  is  writing 
the  life  of  one  who  was  not  only  a  great  states- 
man and  a  great  political  writer,  but  also  one 
of  the  most  original,  curious,  interesting,  and 
interested  human  beings  who  ever  walked  through 
the  pageant  of  life. 


THE  POLITICAL  LIFE  OF 
DISRAELI,   1868-1881* 

MR.  BUCKLE  has  reached  the  end  of  his  long 
journey.f  He  will  receive  the  congratulations 
of  everybody  who  cares  about  English  political 
history,  and  especially  of  that  great  majority  of 
them,  including  nearly  all  except  the  youngest, 
who  were  readers  of  The  Times  during  his 
editorship.  He  was  even  more  modest  and  self- 
effacing  as  an  editor  than  he  is  as  a  biographer. 
Comparatively  few  of  those  who  every  day  read 
the  paper  which  he  edited  were  so  much  as 
aware  of  his  name,  which,  indeed,  was  hardly 
known  outside  the  small  world  of  those  who 
write.  But  the  name  of  a  biographer  cannot  be 
concealed  ;  least  of  all  that  of  the  biographer  of 
a  man  like  Disraeli.  And  the  biographer  reveals 
the  editor,  and  wins  for  him  the  long-deferred, 
one  may  even  say  scrupulously  avoided,  gratitude 
of  those  who  did  not  know  to  whose  wisdom 
and  judgment  and  high  sense  of  responsibility 
they  chiefly  owed  so  much  which  they  valued  in 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  June  17,  1920. 

t  "  The  Life  of   Benjamin  Disraeli,"  by  George  Earle 
Buckle,  in  succession  to  W.  F.  Monypenny.     Volumes  V. 
and  VI.    (Murray.     185.  net  each.) 
94 


THE  FIVE  ACTS  OF  THE  DRAMA   95 

the  great  newspaper  of  which  he  was  for  so  many 
years  the  guiding  and  directing  head. 

It  was  a  wise  decision  of  the  biographer  to 
give  us  his  last  two  volumes  together.  The 
interest  of  the  book  has  certainly  suffered  by  the 
long  intervals  between  the  appearance  of  the 
earlier  volumes.  The  mass  of  material  was  so 
great  that  delays  and  divisions  were  perhaps 
inevitable.  But  it  is  good  to  have  no  more  of 
them.  The  last  phase  of  Disraeli  is  given,  as  it 
should  be,  as  a  single  act,  though  in  two,  or 
perhaps  three,  scenes.  The  first  act  of  the 
drama  is  the  brilliant  boy,  whose  genius  was 
almost  hidden  under  social,  literary,  and  political 
fopperies.  The  second  is  the  David  who  slew 
Goliath.  The  third  is  the  Chief  of  the  Staff,  in 
an  army  whose  officers  despised  him  as  an  out- 
sider and  distrusted  him  as  a  genius,  under  a 
commander-in-chief  who  with  the  reputation  of 
a  Rupert  was  in  fact  too  lazy  to  keep  the  army 
moving  and  too  cautious  ever  to  risk  a  battle.  In 
the  fourth  he  has  succeeded  to  the  chief  command, 
has  to  fight  on  ground  chosen  by  the  new  general- 
issimo of  the  enemy,  and  is  defeated.  The  fifth, 
given  in  these  two  last  volumes,  is  the  duel, 
thirteen  years  long,  with  that  arch  enemy  of 
whom  he  is  first  the  rival,  then  the  conqueror, 
and  finally  the  victim.  The  political  history  of 
England  between  1868  and  1881  is  that  of  the 
struggle  between  Disraeli  and  Gladstone. 

No  two  men  were  ever  more  unlike.  The 
points  of  contrast  between  them  would  take  a 
volume  to  enumerate  ;  the  things  they  had  in 


96  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

common  were  just  three.  Each  was  a  politician, 
an  author,  and  an  affectionate  husband.  But 
even  here  their  ways  of  being  these  things  were 
so  opposite  that  they  were  scarcely  ever  more 
unlike  than  when  they  met  on  the  same  ground. 
The  Olympian  who  pooh-poohed  the  Bulgarian 
atrocities  as  "  coffee-house  babble  "  was  scarcely 
more  remote  from  the  fervent  orator  who  made 
Mid-Lothian  ring  with  them  than  the  writer  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  innumerable  magazine  articles 
from  the  author  of  "  Coningsby  "  or  "  Sybil," 
or  the  husband  of  Mrs.  Gladstone  from  the 
husband  of  Lady  Beaconsfield.  Probably  Lady 
Beaconsfield,  or  after  her  death,  Lady  Bradford, 
received  more  of  the  flattering  homages  of  love 
in  a  fortnight  than  Mrs.  Gladstone  received  in 
all  her  life.  There  are  many  chapters  in  Disraeli's 
novels  which  contain  more  ideas  than  are  to  be 
found  in  all  the  multifarious  publications  of 
Mr.  Gladstone.  To  emphasize  the  contrast  is, 
of  course,  to  force  an  open  door.  But  not  so, 
perhaps,  to  ask  what  it  was  that  lay  at  the  root 
of  it.  The  two  men  were  sometimes  thought 
of  as  just  two  party  leaders  like  Derby  and 
Russell,  or  even  Pitt  and  Fox,  who  took  different 
views  of  public  questions  and  had  different  ways 
of  managing  Parliament  and  the  country.  But 
the  cleavage  really  goes  much  deeper.  It  is  that 
which  divides  the  man  of  imagination  from  the 
practical  man,  the  artist  from  the  moralist,  the 
man  who  is  thinking  in  perfect  freedom,  furnish- 
ing his  motives  and  materials  out  of  his  own 
sources,  from  the  man  who  is  the  slave  of  his 


GLADSTONE  AND  DISRAELI       97 

education  and  his  world,  whose  thoughts  are 
always  occasioned  and  directed  by  some  impulsion 
from  without ;  in  a  word,  that  which  divides 
genius  from  talent  however  marvellous,  or,  if 
you  like  it  better,  the  genius  of  ideas  from  the 
genius  of  administration.  Akin  to  this  is  the 
contrast  between  the  universal  way  of  looking  at 
things  natural  to  Disraeli  and  occasionally  so 
disconcerting  to  his  political  supporters,  and 
Gladstone's  entirely  local,  national,  and  traditional 
habit  of  mind,  always  through  all  changes 
narrowly  English,  and  English  of  a  particular 
class  and  type,  the  type  formed  by  the  Anglican 
Church,  the  public  schools  and  the  universities, 
and  developed  by  practical  activities,  public  or 
private.  No  doubt  the  ordinary  man  of  that 
type  does  not  write  books  or  pamphlets  about 
Homer,  or  Vaticanism,  or  Bishop  Butler,  or 
Home  Rule.  But  all  he  would  need  for  doing 
so  is  more  brains.  All  those  subjects  belong  to 
his  world  and  are  in  the  line  of  his  development. 
But  "  the  two  nations "  of  "  Sybil,"  the 
"  Sidonian "  politics  of  "  Coningsby,"  the 
"  Asian  Mystery  "  of  "  Tancred  "  and  "  Lord 
George  Bentinck  "  are,  or  were  when  Disraeli 
wrote  of  them,  all  quite  out  of  his  reach  and  ken. 
These  are  the  two  men  whose  rivalry  divided 
England  during  the  thirteen  years  with  which 
these  volumes  deal.  No  such  two  had  filled  the 
air  of  Parliament  with  greatness  since  the  days  of 
Pitt  and  Fox  ;  perhaps  none  such  will  be  seen 
there  again.  It  is  a  glorious  theme  for  a  bio- 
grapher. We  have  had  it  from  the  side  of 


98  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

Gladstone.  Now  we  have  it  from  that  of 
Disraeli.  Mr.  Buckle,  of  course,  makes  no 
pretence  of  being  a  Lord  Morley.  He  is  neither 
a  great  statesman,  nor  a  great  student,  nor  a 
great  critic  of  life  and  letters,  and  he  seldom  or 
never  drops  in  passing  those  pregnant  general 
reflections,  often  plainly  born  of  personal  experi- 
ences, which  are  the  salt  of  Lord  Morley's  book 
and  give  the  reader  a  sense  of  his  presence  on 
almost  every  page.  Mr.  Buckle  keeps  in  the 
main  to  the  part  of  chronicler ;  and  when  he 
comments  he  confines  himself  very  closely  to 
the  defence  of  his  hero  and  the  business  in  hand, 
seldom  travelling  into  the  history  or  philosophy 
of  politics  at  large.  Fate  has,  in  truth,  sorted 
rather  strangely  the  two  statesmen  and  their 
biographers.  The  traditional,  orthodox,  and 
conventional  Englishman  and  Anglican  has  been 
handed  over  to  the  cosmopolitan  philosopher, 
while  the  typical  product  of  Winchester  and 
Oxford  deals  with  the  man  who  was  always  an 
alien  and  a  mystery  in  the  land  he  lived  to  rule. 
When  one  reads  Lord  Morley  one  feels  that,  in 
discussing  Gladstone's  policy  or  speeches,  he 
has  in  his  mind,  in  the  background,  if  not  on  the 
surface,  Aristotle  or  Demosthenes  or  Burke,  the 
problems  and  lessons  of  history,  Greek,  Roman, 
and  French,  as  well  as  English.  Mr.  Buckle 
seldom  takes  us,  even  by  suggestion,  outside 
the  circumstances  and  considerations  which 
immediately  influenced  those  who  supported 
or  opposed  his  hero's  actions.  The  data  he 
deals  with  are  the  facts  and  arguments  as  they 


CHURCH  APPOINTMENTS         99 

were  at  the  time  ;  the  Court  before  which  he 
tries  them  is  that  of  the  results  as  we  can  now 
see  them.  The  consequence  is  that  Gladstone 
is  seen  in  the  light  of  the  universal  rather  more 
than  he  deserves,  and  Disraeli  rather  less. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Buckle's 
modest  abstentions  from  general  principles  make 
liim  a  mere  hero-worshipper  or  partisan.     Of 
this    his    philosophic    rival    is   certainly    more 
guilty  than  he.    The  universal  has  its  dangers. 
It  fixes  the  eyes  on  general  principles,  which  in 
Mr.  Gladstone's  case  were  certainly  lofty  and 
pure,    and    ignores    the    pressure    of    passing 
occasions  and  interests,  which  was  as  powerful 
with  him  as  with  other  men  and  no  more  en- 
nobling.    Consequently  it  is  a  little  unconscious 
of  such  things  as  the  Jesuitical  casuistry  which 
defended  the  Collier  and  Ewelme  appointments 
and  a  little  unaware  that  other  motives  beside 
the  ostensible  ones  had  their  influence  in  pro- 
moting the  Bulgarian  agitation  and  the  conversion 
to  Home  Rule.    Mr.  Buckle's  narrower  vision 
often  sees  clearer.    No  doubt  his  path  is  easier 
Disraeli  himself  made  no  pretence  of  being  in 
politics  solely  for  the  service  of  God.     But  with- 
out rising  to  that  height  he  might  have  taken, 
and  Gladstone  did  take,  a  much  higher  view  of 
his  responsibilities  than  Mr.  Buckle  shows  him 
actually    taking.    There    is,    for    instance,    the 
matter  of  Church  appointments.     It  is  amusing 
to  find  Disraeli  writing  in  1875  to  Lord  Salisbury, 
who  was  supposed  to  represent  "  High  Church  " 
in   the   Cabinet :    "  Can    you   suggest  a   good 


ioo  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

High  Church  dean  who  is  not  a  damned  fool, 
and  won't  make  himself  ridiculous  ?  "  and  to 
find  Lord  Salisbury  replying,  "  I  have  put 
down  all  that  I  know  about  possible  High 
Church  deans — '  who  are  not  damned  fools  ' — a 
formidable  restriction ! "  But  however  enter- 
taining and  however  well  justified  this  corre- 
spondence may  be,  it  hardly  suggests  the  ideal 
spirit  in  which  Church  appointments  should  be 
approached.  Mr.  Buckle  deserves  credit  for 
making  no  secret  of  it,  nor  of  the  very  electioneer- 
ing grounds  on  which  some  ecclesiastical 
dignitaries,  including  Bishops,  were  actually 
appointed,  and  more,  but  for  the  Queen,  would 
have  been,  in  preparation  for  the  Dissolution 
of  1868. 

On  the  whole,  then,  everybody  who  is  not  an 
extreme  partisan  will  recognise  the  honesty,  the 
lucidity  and  ability  with  which  Mr.  Buckle  has 
stated  his  case.  A  case  it  is,  of  course.  He 
writes  as  frankly  from  the  one  point  of  view  as 
Lord  Morley  from  the  other.  Perhaps  the  day 
of  final  judgment  is  not  yet ;  and  neither  could 
have  done  what  neither  has  much  attempted. 
Meanwhile  we  have  here  again  one  of  the  most 
exciting  of  Parliamentary  stories  told  from 
inside  with  fullness  and  authority.  We  are 
present  at  every  stage  of  the  great  duel ;  we 
stand  by  the  side  of  one  of  the  two  champions 
and  are  witnesses  of  his  triumphs  and  defeats, 
and,  more  than  that,  auditors  and  almost  par- 
takers of  all  his  secret  hopes  and  fears.  And 
there  is  a  still  greater  thing.  The  duel  was  no 


THE  QUEEN  AND   THE  CABINET    101 

mere  personal  struggle.  It  "  shook  realms  and 
nations  in  its  jar,"  as  truly  as  that  which  death 
was  just  bringing  to  a  close  when  the  older  of 
these  later  protagonists  was  being  born.  The 
life  of  England  was  bound  up  in  it.  The  destiny 
even  of  Europe  seemed  sometimes  to  hang  on 
it.  It  is  no  small  thing  to  be,  as  it  were,  made 
members  of  the  Cabinet  which  decided  such 
issues.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  that 
is  what  Mr.  Buckle  has  been  enabled  to  make  us. 
The  kindness  of  his  Majesty  the  King  has  allowed 
him  to  publish  a  very  large  number  of  the  letters 
which  passed  almost  daily  between  Disraeli  and 
Queen  Victoria.  To  the  subsequent  wrath  of 
Gladstone  when  he  discovered  it,  Disraeli  was 
in  the  habit  of  giving  the  Queen  detailed  accounts 
of  Cabinets  and  of  the  various  opinions  of 
Ministers,  a  practice  in  which  he  was  clearly 
within  his  rights,  for  Ministers  are  individually 
and  not  merely  collectively  the  servants  and 
advisers  of  the  Sovereign,  and  the  Sovereign 
cannot  know  too  much  about  them.  In  any  case 
we  are  now  the  gainers  by  it.  We  see  policy 
being  shaped  day  by  day,  and  those  who  helped 
the  shaping  and  those  who  hindered.  Of  the 
Queen's  letters  what  is  to  be  said  is  that  nothing 
has  previously  been  published  which  gives  any- 
thing like  so  vivid  a  picture  of  her  as  she  was 
at  this  time  ;  a  somewhat  strange  mixture  of 
passion  and  common  sense,  self-will  and  sense 
of  duty,  shrewdness  and  limited  vision  ;  with, 
above  all,  three  great  qualities  possessed  without 
measure  or  limit  or  mixture  of  alloy  ;  truthful- 

H 


102  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

ness,  courage,  and  love  of  England.  To  these 
letters  are  added  those  of  Derby,  Salisbury,  and 
other  Ministers.  The  result  is  that  in  this  book 
we  hear  the  words  and  read  the  letters  not  only 
of  the  Ministers,  but  of  Bismarck,  Gortschakoff, 
Schouvaloff,  and  the  rest  as  soon  as  they  were 
said  or  written,  and  are  told  at  once  what  the 
Queen  and  her  Ministers  thought  of  them. 

This  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  book,  but  it 
is  not  the  newest.  That  is  the  curious  corre- 
spondence with  Lady  Bradford  and  Lady 
Chesterfield.  Till  now  scarcely  any  one  has  been 
allowed  to  see  these  letters  ;  even  Mr.  Mony- 
penny  is  said  to  have  been  refused  a  sight  of 
them  when  he  began  this  Life.  Happily,  Mr. 
Buckle  has  been  more  fortunate,  and  all  his 
readers  will  be  full  of  gratitude  to  the  late 
Commander  Bridgeman  and  the  other  owners 
of  the  letters  for  their  generosity  in  allowing 
this  singular,  but  characteristic,  episode  of 
Disraeli's  old  age  to  be  made  public.  No  one 
who  knows  anything  of  the  facts  doubts  the 
depth  and  sincerity  of  his  love  for  his  wife.  To 
the  end  his  regret  for  her,  his  loneliness  without 
her,  is  a  frequent  theme  of  his  letters.  The  very 
love  letters  with  which  he  embarrassed  Lady 
Bradford — 1 100  of  them  in  eight  years — probably 
even  the  letter  in  which  he  asked  her  widowed 
sister  to  become  his  wife,  were  written  on  paper 
which  recalled  his  loss  of  Lady  Beaconsfield  by 
the  thickest  of  black  edges.  He  was  once 
looking  with  Lord  Redesdale  at  the  preparations 
for  an  official  banquet  which  he  had  to  give, 


ACTOR  AND  ARTIST  103 

"  when  all  of  a  sudden,"  says  Lord  Redesdale, 
he  turned  round,  his  eyes  were  dim  and  his 
voice  husky,  as  he  said,  "  Ah,  my  dear  fellow, 
you  are  happy,  you  have  a  wife."  He  was  a 
born  actor ;  and  this,  like  the  language  of 
Oriental  devotion  which  he  addressed  to  the 
Queen,  like  his  mystical  raptures  about  race 
and  destiny  and  religion  and  England,  was  no 
doubt,  in  one  sense,  acting.  That  is  to  say,  it 
was  an  imaginative  embodiment  of  the  truth. 
In  this,  as  in  everything  else,  as  unlike  as  possible 
to  the  typical  English  gentleman  of  whom  it  was 
his  fate  and  his  pride  to  be  the  political  leader, 
he  could  not  rest  till  he  had  given  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  a  visible  shape,  an  external  life  of 
expression,  in  which  he — and  others — could  see, 
enjoy,  and  admire  them.  And,  of  course,  the 
artist  in  him  naturally  became  what  a  great 
writer  said  it  was  an  artist's  function  to  be — 
"  a  magnifying  mirror  of  the  truth."  But, 
whatever  dullards  might  think,  it  was  the  truth, 
not  a  lie,  whether  Lady  Beaconsfield  or  Lady 
Bradford,  England  or  Queen  Victoria,  were  the 
picture  in  the  mirror.  No  doubt  Disraeli,  who 
was  a  man  of  ideas  rather  than  of  principles, 
would  occasionally  make  untrue  statements 
which  Gladstone,  the  man  of  principles  rather 
than  of  ideas,  would  not  have  made.  This  book 
shows  him  doing  so  once  or  twice,  as  on  the 
occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  Hatfield  and  in  the 
amusing  story  of  a  compliment  he  paid  to  Mr. 
Mallock,  who  had  then  just  published  "  The 
New  Republic."  A  lady  anxious  to  capture  a 


104  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

clever  recruit  for  the  party  asked  Disraeli  to  read 
his  book  and  send  some  complimentary  message. 
He  seldom  read  new  books,  and  declined  that 
part  of  the  request.  But  he  was  quite  equal  to 
producing  the  compliment  without  reading  the 
book.  He  gave  the  lady  a  note  saying  he  was 
going  to  Hughenden,  and  only  wished  it  could 
be  "  peopled  with  the  bright  creations  of  Mr. 
Mallock's  fancy  "  !  But  few  of  us  altogether 
escape  these  polite  insincerities  even  without  the 
excuse  of  a  State  or  a  party  to  serve  by  them. 
And  perhaps  Gladstone's  unconscious  untruths, 
if  the  more  innocent,  were  the  more  dangerous. 
Disraeli  might  have  done  the  Ewelme  job,  and 
might  have  defended  it.  But  he  would  have 
been  well  aware  of  what  he  was  doing  and 
defending.  Gladstone,  with  all  his  exalted  and 
sincere  sense  of  truth  and  duty,  was  occasionally 
afflicted  with  the  kind  of  lie  which  Plato  thought 
the  worst  of  all — the  lie  which  the  liar  is  unaware 
of  because  it  is  inside  the  soul. 

However,  there  is  no  question  of  any  kind  of 
lying  in  these  love  letters.  They  involve  no 
disloyalty  to  Lady  Beaconsfield  and  no  deceit 
of  Lady  Bradford.  Nothing  in  Disraeli  seems 
quite  natural  to  English  eyes.  But  in  reality 
nothing  was  more  natural  to  him,  being  what  he 
was,  old  and  lonely,  a  man  who  had  all  his  life 
been  dependent  on  some  woman  for  sympathy, 
admiration,  and  affection,  than  that  he  should 
turn,  within  a  few  months  of  his  wife's  death, 
for  inspiration,  as  he  sincerely  called  it,  to  these 
two  great  ladies  who  recalled  his  youth  while 


LADY   BRADFORD  105 

they  gilded,  charmed,  and  consoled  his  old  age. 
The  intimacy  grew  very  rapidly.  Before  he 
had  been  a  widower  six  months  Lady  Chester- 
field was  already  "  Dearest  Lady  Ches.,"  and 
he  was  her  "  most  affectionate  D."  But  though 
he  proposed  to  Lady  Chesterfield,  it  was  Lady 
Bradford,  who  soon  became  "  Selina,"  with 
whom  the  intimacy  was  closest.  Indeed,  he 
told  her  once  that  he  loved  her  sister  but  was  in 
love  with  her  ;  and  that  there  was  all  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two.  It  was  to  her,  who  did 
not  like  his  novels,  as  he  complained,  that  the 
master  of  irony  cryptically  dedicated  his  last 
book  by  giving  it  the  name  of  "  Endymion,"  the 
human  lover  of  the  Moon-Goddess  Selene. 
She  naturally  resented  some  of  his  extravagances, 
and  the  lovers'  quarrels  between  the  elderly 
statesman  and  a  lady  who  was  already  a  grand- 
mother are  sometimes — entirely  by  his  fault — 
a  little  ridiculous.  His  artistry  was  not  always 
in  perfect  taste  :  one  can  never  enough  remember 
that  he  was  of  a  race  among  whose  many  fine 
qualities  good  taste  is  scarcely  ever  included. 
But  behind  all  this  there  was  real  sincerity  :  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  there  was  a  true  cry  of 
the  heart.  He  loved  Lady  Bradford  for  the 
right  reason  :  because  she  was  what  she  was  and 
because  he  was  himself.  He  knew  that  her 
feelings  to  him  were  not  the  same  as  his  to  her  ; 
and  admits  that  it  was  "  natural  and  reasonable  " 
that  this  should  be  so.  But,  as  he  adds,  "  un- 
fortunately for  me  my  imagination  did  not 
desert  me  with  my  youth."  He  was  not  a  man 


io6  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

of  miscellaneous  friendships.  He  hated  clubs 
and  cared  little  for  the  society  of  men. 

I  require  perfect  solitude  or  perfect  sympathy. 
My  present  life  gives  me  neither  of  these  ineffable 
blessings.  It  may  be  brilliant  but  it  is  too  frag- 
mentary. It  is  not  a  complete  existence.  It  gives 
me  neither  the  highest  development  of  the  intellect 
or  the  heart :  neither  Poetry  nor  Love. 

So  he  wrote  to  her  in  1874  :  anc*  during  the 
seven  years  he  still  had  to  live  she  gave  him 
always  more  and  more  of  the  "  perfect  sympathy  " 
which  he  craved.  She  and  Lord  Bradford 
gradually  forgot  his  extravagances  in  their 
admiration  for  his  genius,  in  their  pity  for  his 
loneliness,  and,  no  doubt,  in  their  natural  pride 
in  the  friendship  of  a  man  on  whom  the  eyes  of 
all  Europe  were  fixed.  And  of  course  Lady 
Bradford  felt  something  more.  Her  letters  to 
him  are  destroyed.  Some  of  them,  as  is  evident 
from  his  replies,  complained  of  his  embarrassing 
attentions.  But  others,  as  may  be  seen  in  his 
letter  of  July  4,  18^5,  contained  words  of 
affection  for  which  he  would  have  been  unreason- 
able indeed  if  he  had  not  been  willing,  as  he  says, 
"  to  bless  the  being  who  wrote  them." 

No  review  can  hope  even  to  touch  on  a 
hundredth  part  of  the  topics  and  events  dis- 
cussed in  the  thirteen  hundred  large  pages  of 
these  two  volumes.  Disraeli  was  a  many-sided 
man,  and  the  Premiership  is  a  many-sided 
office.  Mr.  Buckle's  story  is  one  of  public 


A  CROWDED   LIFE  107 

life  and  private :  of  the  crowded  parties  of 
London  and  the  beechen  solitudes  of  Hughenden  : 
of  a  writer  of  novels  and  a  reader  of  the  classics  : 
of  the  Queen  and  Lady  Bradford  :  of  the  enemy 
and  the  friend  of  Lord  Salisbury  :  of  the  House 
of  Commons  and  the  House  of  Lords :  of 
religion  as  a  world-shaping  force,  his  under- 
standing of  which  makes  Disraeli  pre-eminent 
among  the  writers  of  his  day,  and  of  religious 
parties  in  the  Church  of  England,  his  ignorance 
of  which  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  his  down- 
fall :  of  a  policy  in  Ireland  of  which  he  resisted 
the  optimistic  beginnings  and  foresaw  the 
disastrous  end  :  of  Abyssinia  and  Afghanistan, 
India  and  South  Africa,  the  Suez  Canal  and 
Cyprus,  the  Franco-Prussian  War  and  the 
Russo-Turkish  War,  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano 
and  the  Treaty  of  Berlin.  These  are  only  a 
fraction  of  the  whole.  Much  of  the  book,  for 
instance,  is  occupied  with  Home  affairs.  Lord 
Derby's  cowardly  refusal  of  office  in  1855 
prevented  the  author  of  "  Sybil  "  from  attaining 
power  till  he  was  old  and  almost  constantly  ill. 
Nothing  in  this  book  will  be  newer  to  the  public 
than  the  heroic  courage  with  which  the  spirit  of 
Disraeli  steeled  itself  to  manage  his  Sovereign 
and  his  colleagues,  in  fact,  to  rule  England  and 
guide  Europe,  while  his  body,  often  racked  with 
pain,  seemed  as  if  it  would  refuse  its  office 
altogether.  But  Mr.  Buckle  has  no  difficulty  in 
showing  that,  even  at  that  eleventh  hour  and  in 
the  midst  of  foreign  distractions,  Disraeli 
managed  to  achieve  work  which  makes  his 


io8  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

record  as  a  social  reformer  the  very  reverse 
of  a  blank.  His  most  discussed  piece  of  home 
legislation,  the  Public  Worship  Regulation  Act, 
was  indeed  a  complete  failure.  But  his  support 
of  it  was  not  his  own  choice  ;  it  was  almost 
forced  upon  him  by  the  Queen,  who  showed 
herself  as  unwise  in  that  matter  as  she  showed 
herself  wise,  much  wiser  and  more  public- 
spirited  than  Disraeli,  in  the  matter  of  great 
Church  appointments.  But  Disraeli's  position 
in  these  things  was  very  much  that  of  a  foreigner, 
and  no  foreigner  has  ever  felt  anything  but 
contempt  for  the  English  Ritualists.  If  a 
Catholic,  he  prefers  the  real  thing  to  the  "  mass 
in  masquerade  "  ;  if  a  Protestant,  he  detests 
traitors  in  the  camp  of  the  greatest  of  all  the 
Churches  which  defy  Rome.  This,  however, 
was  a  side  issue,  in  which  Disraeli's  ignorance 
and  the  Queen's  prejudices  betrayed  them  to 
failure.  In  real  social  legislation  there  was  no 
failure,  but  the  contrary.  The  crying  needs  of 
the  "  condition  of  the  people  "  were  at  once 
taken  in  hand  by  Disraeli's  Ministry.  Measures 
dealing  with  housing  and  Friendly  Societies, 
with  the  law  of  "  conspiracy  "  in  trade  disputes, 
with  the  hours  of  factory  labour,  with  the 
grievances  of  seamen  and  agricultural  tenants, 
soon  became  law.  Lord  Morley  and  Liberals 
generally  have  affected  to  scoff  at  Disraeli's 
work  in  this  field.  They  need  no  answer  but 
the  words  of  a  Labour  member  of  Parliament 
spoken  to  his  constituents  in  1879 :  "  The 
Conservative  Party  have  done  more  for  the 


EDUCATION  OF  HIS  PARTY     109 

working  classes  in  five  years  than  the  Liberals 
have  in  fifty." 

But  no  one  will  pretend  that  Disraeli's  place 
in  political  history  will  be  decided  by  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  his  social  legislation.  The  Acts 
of  Parliament  which  he  passed  were  only  the 
visible  effects  of  a  much  larger  achievement.  So 
far  as  his  ultimate  rank  as  a  statesman  is  to  be 
fixed  by  anything  occurring  in  the  field  of  home 
politics,  it  is  his  "  education  "  of  his  party  that 
must  fix  it.  It  is,  no  doubt,  partly  due  to 
Canning  and  Peel,  but  it  is  far  more  due  to 
Disraeli  than  to  both  of  them  together,  that  we 
have  had  in  England  for  the  last  fifty  years  a 
Conservative  Party  which  is  progressive  and 
national  and  not  a  mere  aristocratic  "  fronde," 
reactionary,  blind,  and  stupid,  such  as  those  of 
which  the  continent  of  Europe  has  seen  too 
much.  The  political  situation  since  the  war  is 
too  controversial  and,  indeed,  uncertain  to  be 
discussed.  But  it  is  the  simple  fact  that  ever 
since  Disraeli  gave  the  vote  to  the  mass  of  the 
people  Conservative  candidates,  convinced  and 
avowed  supporters  of  Throne  and  Church  and 
Empire,  have  again  and  again  been  chosen  as 
the  representatives  of  great  popular  constituencies, 
and  especially  of  London,  at  almost  every 
General  Election.  And  the  contrast  between 
this  experience  and  what  has  commonly  happened 
in  Paris  and  Berlin,  Rome  and  Madrid,  is  the 
measure  of  the  genius  of  Disraeli,  even  when  all 
allowance  has  been  made  for  the  help  he  derived 
from  the  practical  instinct  of  the  English  race. 


no  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

But  no ;  the  words  are  scarcely  written 
before  one  is  forced  to  take  them  back.  The 
genius  of  Disraeli  was  a  world-genius,  and  is  not 
to  be  measured  by  anything  achieved  within 
the  boundaries  of  a  small  island.  Lord  Salisbury 
well  said  of  him  that  "  zeal  for  the  greatness  of 
England  was  the  passion  of  his  life."  But 
England,  in  his  eyes,  was  always  something  much 
larger  than  the  forty  counties  of  the  geography 
books.  He  believed  in  race,  and  for  him  England 
was  the  English  race  all  over  the  world.  He 
believed  in  history,  and  in  his  mind  England 
was  always  much  more  than  the  Sovereign  or 
people  or  achievement  of  the  hour ;  it  was  the 
England  of  Elizabeth  and  Chatham,  of  the 
Heights  of  Abraham  and  the  field  of  Waterloo. 
He  believed  in  ideas,  and  saw  in  England  the 
visible  embodiment  on  a  world-wide  scale  of 
the  greatest  and  most  hopeful  of  all  political 
ideas,  for  which  he  found  or  coined  his  famous 
Roman  phrase,  "  Imperium  et  Libertas."  So, 
naturally  enough,  and  indeed  inevitably,  it  will 
not  be  with  his  Housing  or  Trades  Union 
legislation,  no,  nor  even  with  the  party  he 
transformed  and  inspired,  that  history  will  be 
occupied  when  the  day  comes  for  the  final 
estimate  of  his  work  and  influence.  It  will 
rather  have  to  contrast  the  negligible  position 
to  which  England  had  sunk  among  the  Powers 
of  Europe  between  1864  and  1874  and  in  part 
sank  again  between  1880  and  1885,  with  the 
commanding  position  to  which  Disraeli  at  once 
restored  her  when  he  for  the  first  time  in  his 


FOREIGN  POLICY  in 

life  could  speak  in  her  name  with  no  fear  of 
contradiction,  as  the  master  of  an  assured 
Parliamentary  majority  and  the  Minister  of  an 
admiring  and  even  affectionate  Sovereign. 
It  will  have  to  consider  whether  some  large 
part  of  the  credit  for  the  courage,  will,  and 
endurance  which  enabled  England  to  play  the 
leading  part  in  the  deliverance  of  the  world  in 
1914-1918  may  not  be  due  to  the  great  man  who, 
whatever  his  errors  in  detail,  had  taught  her 
forty  years  earlier  not  to  be  afraid  of  her  own 
greatness,  and  never  to  dream  that  the  destinies 
of  Europe  could  possibly  be  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  the  descendants  of  the  men  who  had 
fought  Philip  II.  and  Louis  XIV.  and  Napoleon. 
If  we  have  never  again,  not  even  in  1880-1885, 
cut  the  sorry  figure  which  we  cut  in  1864  and  in 
1870,  is  it  not  in  part  because  1878  and  Disraeli 
had  proved  such  cowardice  to  be  unnecessary 
and  had  rendered  any  return  to  it  impossible  ? 
His  death  did  not  remove  his  influence.  Some 
of  the  details  of  his  policy  were  abandoned  or 
modified,  but  that  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  he 
created  a  tradition.  He  trained  Lord  Salisbury 
in  foreign  affairs,  and  Lord  Salisbury  trained  Lord 
Lansdowne  who  made  the  Entente  with  France 
and  Mr.  Balfour  who  created  the  Committee  of 
Imperial  Defence.  And  Mr.  Asquith  and  Lord 
Grey  accepted  and  completed  their  work.  That 
meant  that  we  should  never  again,  at  least  as 
regards  Western  Europe,  be  mere  impotent 
spectators  of  the  fait  accompli  as  we  had  been  in 
1864  and  1870.  It  meant  that  we  had  accepted 


ii2  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

the  doctrine  which  Disraeli  had  laid  down  as 
early  as  1848  when  warning  Parliament  about 
Prussian  ambitions  : 

I  never  can  believe  that  the  peace  of  Europe  is  to 
be  maintained  by  hiding  our  heads  in  the  sand  and 
comforting  ourselves  with  the  conviction  that  nobody 
will  find  us  out. 

That  doctrine,  Disraeli  always  maintained, 
does  not  mean  war.  It  means  peace.  The 
last  volume  of  this  Life  is,  of  course,  largely 
occupied  with  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  and  the 
events  which  led  to  it.  Mr.  Buckle  tells  the 
story  in  great  detail  from  behind  the  scenes, 
where  the  Queen  was  always  passionately  urging 
forward  and  Lord  Derby  always  cautiously 
hanging  back ;  where  Lord  Salisbury  was  gradually 
changing  from  the  suspicious  and  suspected 
critic  of  his  chief  to  the  trusted  colleague,  ally, 
and  friend  ;  where  Petersburgh  and  Constanti- 
nople and  Berlin  were  slowly  learning  that  "  the 
old  Jew  "  was  a  man  who  meant  business  and 
could  not  be  bluffed.  A  discussion  of  the  details 
of  Beaconsfield's  policy  during  the  Russo- 
Turkish  war  and  at  the  Congress  would  be 
impossible  here.  And  it  is  quite  unnecessary. 
But  two  things  emerge  with  great  clearness. 
One  is  personal.  It  is  Disraeli's  definiteness 
of  purpose  and  strength  of  will.  Bismarck  said 
of  him  at  Berlin  :  "It  was  easy  to  transact 
business  with  him  ;  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  you 
knew  exactly  how  you  stood  with  him ;  the 
limits  to  which  he  was  prepared  to  go  were 


THE   CRISIS  WITH  RUSSIA       113 

clearly  defined  and  a  rapid  summary  soon 
precised  matters."  Already,  in  1875,  when 
Bismarck  was  plotting  an  attack  on  France, 
Disraeli  had  taught  him  that  he  had  now  to  deal 
in  England  with  people  who  could  make  up 
their  minds  and  were  not  afraid,  as  Disraeli  was 
always  telling  Derby,  to  say  "  Bo  to  a  goose." 
So  when  the  Russo-Turkish  crisis  came  Disraeli 
at  once  made  up  his  mind  how  much  of  what  he 
desired  was  possible ;  and  through  the  long 
struggle  in  the  Cabinet  and  afterwards  in  the 
negotiations  would  neither  be  pushed  further 
than  he  meant  to  go  by  the  Queen,  nor  frightened 
out  of  what  he  meant  to  have  by  Lord  Derby. 
The  majority  of  the  Cabinet  often  wanted  him 
to  take  less,  the  Queen  again  and  again  threatened 
abdication  if  she  did  not  get  more,  but  Disraeli 
stood  firm,  and  the  policy  he  carried  out  at 
Berlin  was,  in  substance,  the  policy  he  laid  down 
from  the  first.  Its  main  points  were  that 
Russia  should  neither  occupy  Constantinople 
nor  destroy  Turkey  ;  and  that  whatever  changes 
were  made  should  be  made  by  Europe  as  a  whole 
and  with  a  full  recognition  of  the  British  claim 
to  a  special  voice  in  what  might  so  vitally  affect 
our  position  in  India.  His  resolute  will  con- 
trolled the  Queen,  drove  out  Derby,  converted 
Salisbury,  defied  Gortschakoff,  and  dominated 
Bismarck.  He  was  never  afraid  to  run  risks  ; 
saw  clearly,  and  from  the  first,  against  Lord  Salis- 
bury that  you  could  not  resist  Russia  unless  you 
were  plainly  prepared  for  war  if  necessary  and 
even  for  the  disagreeable  alliance  with  Turkey. 


ii4  DISRAELI,    1868-1881 

But  he  never  believed  in  war.  He  was  sure,  and 
the  Crimean  precedent  supports  him,  as  well  as 
the  improved  situation  directly  Derby  went,  that 
it  was  drifting  and  giving  the  appearance  of  not 
meaning  business,  that  was  likely  to  lead  to  war. 
At  the  worst  he  compelled  his  Cabinet  to  submit 
under  threat  of  resignation,  as  he  made  the 
Berlin  Congress  submit  by  ordering  his  special 
train  and  taking  care  that  Bismarck  knew  he  had 
done  so. 

The  other  thing  which  emerges  from  Mr. 
Buckle's  story  is  that  the  first  object  of  his 
policy  was  one  which  has  been  little  mentioned, 
though  it  proved  all-important  for  the  future 
history  of  Europe.  The  details  of  the  Treaty 
have  been  much  discussed,  and  often  very 
unfairly.  Disraeli  certainly  did  not  care  as  much 
as  he  ought  to  have  cared  about  the  sufferings  of 
the  Christian  subjects  of  Turkey.  But  as  for 
those  of  Asia  it  was  Gladstone,  as  Mr.  Buckle 
shows,  who  deprived  them  of  the  partial  pro- 
tection which  Disraeli  had  given  them.  And  it 
is  at  least  very  doubtful  whether  those  of  Europe 
would  have  gained  by  the  making  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  practically  a  Russian  province. 
Certainly,  Serbia,  Greece,  and  Rumania  (and 
ultimately  all  the  Allies  of  1914)  have  to  thank 
Disraeli  for  preventing  the  creation  of  a  big 
Bulgaria  extending  to  the  /Egean  Sea  and  in- 
cluding many  thousands  of  Serbs  and  Greeks. 
But  the  real  object  of  Disraeli's  policy  as  sketched 
beforehand,  and  claimed  by  him  in  retrospect,  was 
nothing  merely  Balkan,  nothing  even  confined 


THE   REAL  OBJECT  OF   DISRAELI    115 

to  the  relations  between  England  and  Russia  and 
Turkey.  It  was  a  European  object.  When  the 
Eastern  question  was  reopened  in  1875,  the  three 
military  Powers,  Russia,  Austria,  and  Germany, 
assumed  to  themselves  the  right  to  dictate  the 
policy  of  Europe.  They  evidently  looked  upon 
France  as  broken  and  England  as  negligible. 
This  was  the  heritage  of  Gladstone  and  Gran- 
ville.  Disraeli  at  once  insisted  that  British 
interests  in  these  matters  were  as  great  as 
Russian  or  Austrian,  and  said  that  he  would 
not  allow  them  to  be  ignored.  When  the  three 
Powers  presented  their  Memorandum  of  policy, 
framed  without  any  consultation  of  France, 
Italy,  or  England,  he  would  not  follow  France 
and  Italy  in  swallowing  the  insult.  "  If  we  are 
stiff  we  shall  gain  all  our  points,"  he  wrote  to 
Derby  ;  and  they  did.  The  Memorandum  was 
withdrawn.  So  when  Salisbury  was  on  his  way 
to  the  Constantinople  Conference,  Disraeli  wrote 
to  him  a  long  letter  of  instructions,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  says  : — 

If  Russia  is  not  checked,  the  Holy  Alliance  will 
be  revived  in  aggravated  form  and  force.  Germany 
will  have  Holland ;  and  France,  England,  and 
Belgium  will  be  in  a  position  I  trust  I  shall  never 
live  to  witness. 

This  new  "  Holy  Alliance,"  with  all  its  dangers, 
he  claimed  to  have  prevented.  "  Our  object," 
he  wrote  to  Drummond  Wolff  two  years  and 
more  after  the  Congress,  "  was  to  break  up  and 
permanently  prevent  the  Alliance  of  the  three 


ii6  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

Empires,  and  I  maintain  there  never  was  a  general 
diplomatic  result  more  completely  effected."  By 
getting  Austria  and  Germany  to  assist  him  in 
checking  Russia  he  drove  a  wedge  between  Central 
Europe  and  Russia,  the  effects  of  which,  as 
Mr.  Buckle  says,  not  all  Bismarck's  subsequent 
dexterities  could  undo.  At  the  same  time  the 
free  Western  Powers  had  reasserted  themselves, 
and  when  the  militarist  danger  came  to  a  head 
in  1914,  the  rift,  begun  at  Berlin  in  1878,  had 
widened,  and  the  three  Empires  of  the  1875 
Memorandum  were  divided  into  two  hostile 
camps.  Disraeli's  biographer  may  fairly  claim 
that  the  sane  imperialism  of  1878  had  its  share 
in  promoting  the  victory  of  free  institutions  in  the 
great  struggle  which  ended  exactly  fifty  years  later. 
These  are  great  topics.  But,  after  all,  for  the 
biographer  of  Disraeli  the  greatest  is  Disraeli 
himself.  It  is  the  man  himself,  what  he  was 
more  than  anything  that  he  did,  which  will 
provide  three-quarters  of  the  readers  of  this 
book.  He  is  always  his  biographer's  subject, 
whatever  others,  whether  men  or  affairs,  give 
their  name  to  the  page.  A  reviewer  cannot 
pretend  to  attempt  what  has  taken  the  biographer 
six  volumes  to  accomplish.  He  can  only  refer 
the  reader  who  is  anxious  for  a  general  impression 
to  two  summaries,  given  here,  the  work  of  the 
two  biographers.  The  first,  printed  at  the  end 
of  the  fifth  volume,  is  Mr.  Buckle's  estimate  of 
Disraeli  as  an  orator  and  Parliamentarian.  There 
are  few  better  things  of  the  kind  anywhere.  It 
exhibits  him,  by  the  testimony  of  many  and 


HIS   MASTERY   OF  THE   HOUSE    117 

adverse  witnesses,  as  the  man  who,  after  over- 
throwing "  the  greatest  member  of  Parliament 
that  ever  lived,"  became  himself,  by  patience, 
by  tact,  by  constant  attendance  and  industry, 
by  wit,  irony,  invective,  eloquence,  above  all  by 
sheer  power  of  intellect  and  imagination,  the 
acknowledged  master,  as  well  as  the  pride  and 
delight,  of  the  House  of  Commons.  George 
Russell,  a  Whig  and  a  Ritualist,  said  that  the 
difference  between  him  and  others  was  the 
difference  between  genius  and  talent.  Sir 
William  Harcourt  wrote  that  his  departure  from 
the  House  left  it  a  chessboard  without  the  queen, 
and  its  game  "  a  petty  struggle  of  pawns."  A 
hostile  writer  said  that  no  orator  had  carried 
further  the  art  of  compelling  an  audience  to 
listen  to  every  word.  That,  perhaps,  gives  a 
hint  of  the  point  in  which  he,  like  Lord  Salisbury 
after  him,  was  so  inferior  to  Gladstone.  His 
gift  was  intellect  and  imagination,  which  are 
solitary  things,  not  emotion,  and  particularly 
not  moral  emotion,  which  insists  on  sharing  and 
being  shared.  He  could  compel  his  hearers  to 
listen  to  him  ;  but  he  himself  stood  aloof,  more 
perhaps  than  Mr.  Buckle  allows,  catching 
opportunities  for  impromptu  illustration  or 
repartee,  but  seldom  or  never  catching,  or  allow- 
ing himself  to  be  caught  by,  any  of  those  waves 
of  emotional  inspiration  which,  coming  from  the 
hearers,  continually  renew  the  speeches  of  the 
very  greatest  orators.  That  loneliness  is  also 
the  final  impression  left  by  the  man.  At  the 
end  of  his  last  volume  Mr.  Buckle  prints  an 

I 


ii8  DISRAELI,   1868-1881 

extremely  interesting  and  subtle  study  of  Disraeli, 
which  was  found  among  Mr.  Monypenny's 
papers.  Mr.  Monypenny  begins  it  by  saying — 

I  have  sometimes  been  asked  if  my  book  would 
at  last  dispel  the  mystery  that  surrounds  Disraeli ; 
and  my  answer  has  invariably  been  that,  unless  the 
mystery  remained  when  I  had  finished  my  labours, 
I  should  have  failed  in  my  task  of  portraiture  :  for 
mystery  was  of  the  essence  of  the  man. 

That  is  a  profound  remark.  No  better  last 
word  could  be  found  for  anything,  great  or 
small,  that  is  written  about  Disraeli.  It  has 
many  meanings,  not  all  of  which  are  to  be  seized 
at  the  first  glance.  But  one  of  them,  and  surely 
the  central  one,  must  be  that  Disraeli  was  in  his 
chosen  field  a  kind  of  "  man  of  destiny,"  and 
that  if  he  abounded  in  surprises  and  incon- 
sistencies, and  often  seemed  to  ignore  the 
ordinary  motives  and  moralities  of  men,  it  was 
partly  because  he  was  impelled  by  a  force,  of 
which  he  himself  could  scarcely  have  said  whether 
it  was  within  him  or  without,  that  indefinable 
force  which  must  always  remain  a  secret  and  a 
mystery,  the  force  to  which  we  give  the  name  of 
genius.  It  is  a  dangerous  force.  Its  product, 
occupied  with  himself,  and  moving  he  scarcely 
knows  where,  is  often  half  charlatan  as  well  as 
half  prophet.  We  see  it  in  one  way  in  Cromwell, 
in  another  in  Chatham.  It  is  what  we  do  not 
find  in  Pitt  or  Peel  or  Gladstone.  It  is  what 
makes  the  eternal  fascination  of  Disraeli. 


VI 
HENRY   FOX* 

THE  title  of  Lord  Ilchester's  book  f  is  a  misnomer. 
It  will  suggest  to  most  people  a  book  of  private 
life  and  family  gossip.  But  not  one-twentieth 
part  of  what  he  has  written  is  occupied  with 
these  things.  What  he  has  given  is  far  nearer 
being  a  political  history  of  England  from  1739, 
when  Henry  Fox  obtained  his  first  office,  that  of 
Surveyor  of  the  Works,  till  his  death  in  1774. 
Of  course,  the  history  is  primarily  a  biography. 
But  during  at  least  the  first  five-and-twenty  of 
these  thirty-five  years  Henry  Fox  played  an 
important  part,  either  as  one  of  the  principal 
actors  or  as  a  spectator  on  whom  the  principal 
actors  were  obliged  to  keep  watchful  eyes,  in 
nearly  all  the  changing  scenes  of  Ministerial 
tragedy  and  comedy.  Once  a  politician  always 
a  politician,  is  at  least  as  true  a  saying  as  once 
an  author  always  an  author.  It  has  been  said 
that  a  Cabinet  Minister  has  only  two  happy  days 
in  his  Cabinet  life — the  day  he  takes  office  and  the 
day  he  leaves  it.  But  it  is  the  first  of  the  two 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  February  25,  1920. 

t  "  Henry  Fox,  First  Lord  Holland,  His  Family  and 
Relations,"  by  the  Earl  of  Ilchester.  Two  volumes. 
(Murray.  32*.  net.) 

119 


120  HENRY  FOX 

which  he  is  always  trying  to  recapture.  It  is 
quite  true  that  politicians  refuse  office  oftener 
than  the  public  knows.  This  book  is  full  of 
such  refusals,  which  were  commoner  then  than 
now.  For  the  fifty  years  which  elapsed  between 
Disraeli's  Reform  Bill  and  the  war  the  country 
was  alternately  governed  by  the  two  great  parties. 
Neither  Liberal  leader  nor  Conservative  could 
think  of  forming  a  Government  unless  he  had  a 
majority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  And  as  to 
whether  he  had  one  there  was  no  doubt.  Nor 
was  there  any  doubt  as  to  what  party  any  particular 
politician  belonged  to  ;  so  that  if  asked  by  his 
leader  to  take  office  he  seldom  refused.  But  in 
the  eighteenth  century  all  these  points  were 
doubtful.  First,  a  man  belonged  to  no  party 
in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  Practically 
all  called  themselves  Whigs,  and  shifted  from 
one  group  of  Whigs  to  another.  Then  a  politician 
had  no  leader  in  the  way  that  Liberals  were  led 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  or  Conservatives  were  led  by 
Lord  Salisbury.  Further,  he  could  not  be  sure 
that  the  Minister  who  invited  him  to  take  office 
had  any  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Anybody  who  became  Minister  had  a  majority 
of  a  kind  because  he  was  the  King's  Minister. 
But  because  he  was  only  the  King's  Minister, 
nominated  by  the  King,  and,  with  rare  exceptions, 
not  called  for  by  any  organised  body  of  opinion 
either  in  Parliament  or  the  country,  his  position 
was  precarious.  He  never  knew  whom  he  could 
rely  on.  Consequently  men  hesitated  to  embark 
in  Ministerial  boats  which  were  to  set  sail  on 


DISUNION  OF  MINISTERS       121 

such  doubtful  voyages.  The  King  could  send 
them  to  sea,  but  he  could  not  guarantee  them 
against  Parliamentary  storms.  The  modern 
party  system,  as  it  worked  before  the  war,  could 
do  both. 

All  this  is  illustrated  by  the  story  here  told 
of  the  career  of  Henry  Fox.  All  or  nearly  all 
the  politicians  of  those  days  were  in  the  game 
for  what  they  could  get  out  of  it.  But  they 
could  never  be  sure  what  was  the  best  card  to 
play.  Consequently  they  never  knew  whether 
to  accept  office  or  to  refuse  it.  They  had  no 
real  principles  to  unite  them  to  one  man  and 
separate  them  from  another.  Nor  was  a  Ministry 
a  homogeneous  body  between  the  time  when 
Walpole  expelled  all  rebels  and  the  time  when 
George  III. — powerfully  assisted  by  Henry  Fox 
— tried  to  turn  out  everybody  but  his  own  and 
Bute's  friends.  The  King  failed  in  his  scheme, 
but  his  action  forced  the  Whigs  to  become  a  party 
based  on  principles  instead  of  a  collection  of 
intriguing  factions  ;  and  when  in  his  evil  hour 
Charles  Fox  returned  to  the  old  system  and 
made  the  Coalition  with  North,  his  victory  was 
but  momentary.  Party — this  time  the  Tory 
Party — returned  a  year  later  with  Pitt,  and  has 
remained  our  system  ever  since.  But  during 
the  period  covered  by  this  book,  members  of  the 
same  Ministry  constantly  spoke  and  voted  against 
each  other  even  on  important  questions.  Pitt 
was  Paymaster  under  Pelham  whose  policy  he 
constantly  attacked.  Fox  was  Paymaster  under 
Pitt  in  his  glorious  Ministry  of  1757,  but  openly 


122  HENRY  FOX 

scoffed  at  some  of  his  military  expeditions  as 
"  breaking  windows  with  guineas,"  and  voted 
against  measures  introduced  with  his  approval. 
Before  that,  while  Secretary  at  War  under  New- 
castle, he  was  in  open  opposition  to  his  official 
chief.  In  those  days  such  actions  caused  no 
surprise.  The  Ministers  were  mere  holders  of 
offices,  very  loosely  bound  to  each  other. 

This  is  the  world  into  which  this  book  takes 
us.  The  numerous  people  who  are  at  home  and 
amused  in  that  world  will  be  grateful  to  Lord 
Rosebery  for  having  suggested  his  task  to  Lord 
Ilchester  and  to  Lord  Ilchester  for  performing 
it  so  well.  The  book  is  well  written  and  well 
arranged.  The  writer  knows  his  subject  and 
his  period  and  can  use  his  knowledge  effectively. 
He  has  had  access  to  a  great  deal  of  material 
which  has  never  been  used  before.  Letters  and 
papers  at  Holland  House,  at  Melbury,  at  Bowood, 
and  elsewhere  have  provided  a  mass  of  evidence, 
much  of  it  in  Henry  Fox's  own  hand,  as  to  his 
motives  and  opinions  at  various  points  in  his 
career.  Occasionally  they  enable  Lord  Ilchester 
to  correct  the  statements  or  judgments  of  previous 
historians.  But  on  the  whole  they  only  fill 
out  the  old  picture  without  altering  its  main 
lines.  Fox  remains  the  best  of  husbands,  the 
most  indulgent  of  fathers,  the  most  affectionate 
of  brothers,  the  most  indefatigable  of  friends, 
the  most  unpopular,  uninspiring,  and  un- 
attractive of  politicians.  A  man  of  ability  he 
undoubtedly  was,  with  only  one  superior,  in  that 
respect,  among  his  contemporaries.  But  ability 


DISTRUST  OF  FOX  123 

is  never  enough  in  a  Parliamentary  system  of 
government  like  ours.  A  man  must  have 
character.  He  must  be  the  kind  of  man  whom 
other  men  can  trust  and  work  with.  That  is  just 
what  Fox  somehow  failed  to  be.  He  worked  in 
turn  with  Newcastle  and  Pitt,  Devonshire  and 
Bedford  and  Shelburne ;  but  every  one  of 
them,  and  even  his  great  friend  and  patron, 
Cumberland,  a  very  honest  man,  found  him 
impossible  and  broke  with  him  in  the  end,  or 
indeed,  in  several  cases,  soon  after  the  beginning. 
George  III.,  in  whose  service  he  had  made 
himself  the  most  hated  man  in  England  by  the 
ruthless  proscription  of  1762,  never  seems  to 
have  been  grateful  to  him  or  to  have  wished  to 
have  him  back.  Somehow,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  of  whom  Pelham  is  the  most  important 
(and  though  Pelham  died  young  he  had  lived 
long  enough  to  find  Fox  a  troublesome  colleague 
and  to  be  suspected  by  Fox  of  intending  to 
dismiss  him),  Fox's  public  and  political  friend- 
ships were  as  uncertain,  uncomfortable,  and 
shortlived  as  his  private  intimacies  and  family 
affections  were  unchanging  and  delightful. 

It  would  almost  seem  as  if  he  were  two 
different  men,  following  opposite  courses  and 
each  so  violently  as  to  lead  to  his  own  misery. 
In  his  private  relations,  especially  to  his  sons, 
he  was  all  affection  and  sympathy.  There  the 
head  had  no  control  at  all  over  the  heart,  which 
carried  blind  indulgence  to  such  lengths  as  gave 
the  father  an  old  age  of  bitter  disappointment  and 
the  sons  a  youth  of  recklessness  and  dishonour. 


124  HENRY  FOX 

In  his  public  life  it  was  all  the  other  way.  There 
he  was  all  head  and,  except  in  persistent  efforts 
to  do  jobs  for  his  private  friends  and  relations, 
no  heart  at  all.  Shrewdness,  common  sense, 
practical  capacity,  a  preference  for  peace,  an 
eye  to  the  material  interests  of  the  nation,  at 
least  where  they  did  not  conflict  with  his  own, 
these  were  his  characteristics  as  they  were  those 
of  his  master,  Walpole.  But  he  did  not  possess 
his  master's  greatest  gift,  an  instinctive  sense  of 
what  was  going  on  in  the  mind  of  the  nation  and 
a  readiness  to  defer  to  it  when  it  could  not 
safely  be  defied.  Walpole  would  never  have 
outraged  opinion  as  Fox  did  by  the  proscription 
of  1762.  He  was  very  clear  in  his  distinction 
between  friends  and  foes,  and  he  liked  being 
master  in  his  house  ;  but  his  prudence  would 
have  told  him  that  conduct  of  that  sort  was 
likely  to  leave  him  with  no  house  to  be  master  of. 
And  then  Walpole  could  safely  do  what  Fox 
could  not,  for  two  reasons.  First,  he  was  a 
greater  man  ;  and  then  he  lived  in  a  smaller 
age.  He  had  no  Pitt  to  make  his  cynicism  and 
corruption  a  mark  for  the  scorn  and  indignation 
of  England.  Fox  made  his  enormous  fortune  as 
Paymaster  after  Pitt  had  refused  to  make  any- 
thing out  of  the  same  office.  Fox  in  1762  kept 
his  shop  at  which  members  of  Parliament  came 
to  sell  their  votes  and  get  the  current  price  for 
them  five  years  after  Pitt  had  scornfully  refused 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  dirty  business  of 
that  sort.  The  change  was  fatal.  Walpole, 
after  ruling  England  for  a  whole  generation,  was 


FOX'S  FATAL  ERROR     125 

never  really  unpopular.  Fox  was  never,  even 
for  a  moment,  the  ruler  of  England  ;  and  yet 
managed  to  get  himself  hated  by  both  Parliament 
and  people. 

The  truth  is  that  from  the  moment  that  Pitt 
had  stormed  the  citadel  of  power  the  old  system 
was  doomed.  The  men  who  worked  it  and 
lived  by  it  were,  of  course,  the  last  to  perceive 
that  sentence  of  death  had  been  passed  upon  it. 
And  they  carried  it  on  as  well  as  they  could. 
There  was  nothing  in  principle  to  separate  the 
methods  of  George  III.  and  North  from  those 
of  Walpole.  But  they  were  no  longer  acquiesced 
in  as  Walpole 's  and  Newcastle's  were.  There 
were  no  more  elections  like  that  of  1754,  when 
only  forty-two  of  all  the  seats  in  the  House  of 
Commons  were  contested.  A  very  few  years 
after  that  Pitt  had  taught  not  only  George  II., 
but  the  House  itself,  that  there  was  such  a 
thing  as  a  public  opinion  which  would  not  be 
ignored.  Those  years  were  the  turning-point 
of  Fox's  career.  He  had  refused  before  that 
election  to  become  Newcastle's  Secretary  of 
State  on  Newcastle's  terms.  He  had  written  to 
the  Duke  of  Richmond  of  the  impossibility  of 
going  back  on  his  refusal :  "  What  can't  be  done 
with  honour  can't  be  done  at  all."  And, 
directly  afterwards,  he  was  feeling  his  way  to  an 
alliance  with  Pitt.  But  only  a  few  months  later 
he  made  the  great  mistake  of  his  life.  Against 
the  advice  of  his  wise  patron,  Cumberland, 
he  deserted  Pitt  and  consented,  as  Lord 
Ilchester  says,  to  "  bolster  up  the  despicable 


126  HENRY  FOX 

Administration  "  of  Newcastle  which,  if  he  had 
been  loyal  to  Pitt,  must  soon  have  fallen  and 
placed  them  both  in  power. 

If  that  had  happened,  his  whole  future  might 
have  been  different.  Cumberland  had  told 
him,  in  the  very  phrase  afterwards  used  by 
Frederick  the  Great,  "  Pitt  is,  what  is  scarce, 
a  man."  That  is,  of  course,  just  what  New- 
castle was  not.  Fox,  who  might  have  been  the 
man's  colleague  and  friend,  preferred  to  be  the 
old  woman's  agent  and  tool.  He  paid  the  price, 
politically  and  morally,  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
It  is  true  that  he  and  Pitt  were  men  of  utterly 
different  natures.  But  in  some  ways  that  made 
them  all  the  fitter  to  work  together.  Pitt  had 
the  eagle  eye  which  took  in  all  the  world  ;  the 
genius  of  initiative,  imagination,  and  command. 
His  sphere  was  obviously  high  politics  and  the 
direction  of  the  war.  Fox  knew  and  cared 
nothing  about  foreign  politics  ;  nor  was  he  a 
man  of  ideas  in  any  field.  But  he  was,  what 
Pitt  was  not,  a  man  of  business  and  a  man  who 
had  learnt,  in  Walpole's  school,  those  arts  of 
management  which  Pitt  disdained  to  practise. 
Even  Pitt,  as  the  failure  of  the  Devonshire 
Ministry  snowed,  could  not,  in  those  days,  afford 
to  do  altogether  without  them.  Fox  could  have 
done,  no  man  more  effectively,  whatever  was 
necessary  in  that  line.  Or,  perhaps,  if  Pitt  had 
had  Fox  by  his  side  in  that  first  venture,  their 
united  abilities  could  have  defied  Newcastle 
without  being  forced  to  imitate  his  methods. 
In  any  case,  Fox  would  have  been  the  gainer. 


FOX  AND   CHATHAM  127 

Some  of  the  rays  of  Pitt's  glory  must  necessarily 
have  shone  on  his  principal  colleague.  And 
perhaps  something  better  still  might  have 
happened.  One  does  not  live  with  a  man  like 
Pitt  for  nothing.  If  Fox  had  stuck  to  Pitt  in 
1754  and  afterwards,  perhaps  that  year  would 
have  marked  the  upward  instead  of  the  down- 
ward turning-point  in  his  character  as  well  as  in 
his  career.  Perhaps  some  such  transformation 
might  have  come  to  him  from  a  definite  breach 
with  Newcastle  and  a  definite  union  with  Pitt, 
as  came  afterwards  to  his  brilliant  son  when  he 
freed  himself  finally  from  the  service  of  the 
Court  and  gave  his  whole  heart  and  brain  to  the 
cause  of  the  Whigs.  And  if  moral  changes  of 
that  kind,  however  possible  at  five-and-twenty, 
are  scarcely  probable  in  a  man  of  fifty,  yet  even 
without  any  such  miracles  it  is  not  inconceivable 
that  an  alliance  between  Pitt  and  Henry  Fox 
might  have  lasted  and  had  great  results.  If  it 
had  they  would  have  faced  the  new  reign  and  its 
intrigues  together,  and  lived,  perhaps,  to  be- 
queath the  legacy  of  their  unity  as  not  the 
smallest  part  of  that  inheritance  of  fame  which 
was  to  fall  to  their  dearly-loved  sons,  instead  of 
dying,  as  they  did,  isolated  and  alone,  the  one 
in  a  solitary  splendour  of  glory,  the  other  in  the 
gloom  of  desertion,  disappointment,  and 
contempt. 

The  two  Pitts  were  unlike  in  genius  ;  the  one 
the  most  willing  and  most  gloriously  successful 
of  England's  War  Ministers,  the  other  the 
most  reluctant  and  unfortunate.  But  each  was 


128  HENRY  FOX 

pre-eminently  a  man  ;  each  forced  his  way  by  right 
of  genius  to  the  first  place,  and  ruled  England 
almost  like  a  Sovereign ;  no  one  ever  doubted 
the  public  patriotism  or  the  private  probity  of 
either.  The  father  died  in  his  old  age,  the  son 
in  his  prime,  but  in  each  case  the  bell  that 
tolled  for  the  death  of  William  Pitt  sounded  in 
the  ears  of  the  nation  as  a  knell  of  departed 
greatness.  There  is  no  such  glorious  parallel 
between  Henry  and  Charles  Fox.  They  had 
the  same  genius  for  private  friendship,  but  in 
their  public  careers  there  is  little  in  common. 
Henry  was  a  mere  man  of  business  and  practice. 
Charles  was  the  most  generous  and  famous  of 
political  amateurs.  Henry  had  no  political 
ideals,  lived  among  the  intrigues  of  party  and 
faction,  and  scarcely  realised  that  there  was  such 
a  thing  as  a  people  of  England.  Charles  was  as 
much  the  first  tribune  of  that  people  in  the 
things  of  peace  as  Chatham  had  been  in  those  of 
war  ;  and,  though  a  much  smaller  man  than 
Chatham,  he  was  far  more  loved,  because  he 
himself  loved  others,  both  those  whom  he  knew 
and  those  whom  he  did  not  know,  with  so  much 
more  generosity,  frankness,  and  simplicity. 
Hard  as  it  is  to  believe  when  we  look  at  his 
portraits,  it  is  certain  that  no  one,  in  all  the  long 
line  of  our  statesmen,  has  been  the  object  of 
such  passionate  affection  as  Charles  Fox.  In 
this  field  his  life  was  an  unbroken  series  of 
triumphs.  The  magic  which  worked  first  upon 
the  adoring  father  and  affectionate  schoolfellows 
of  his  boyhood,  ended  by  conquering  that 


CHARLES   FOX  129 

almost  personal  devotion  of  half  the  nation 
which  surrounded  his  death-bed.  That  was 
what,  in  spite  of  many  serious  faults,  had  come 
to  a  heart  which,  without  ever  ceasing  to  love 
its  own,  had  learned  to  beat  for  the  whole 
human  race,  and  especially  for  all  who  were  the 
victims  of  cruelty,  injustice,  or  wrong.  Can 
anything  be  less  like  the  end  or  the  character  of 
his  father  ?  When  Henry  Fox  died  there  was 
no  poet  to  declare  that  "  many  thousands  "  were 
sad,  or  to  cry  : — 

A  Power  is  passing  from  the  earth 
To  breathless  Nature's  dark  abyss. 

And  if  there  had  been  his  words  would  have 
found  no  response.  It  is  not  to  efficiency,  not 
to  success  in  making  a  fortune,  not  even  to  the 
negative  virtues  of  honesty  and  plain  dealing, 
that  such  tributes,  coming  from  such  men,  are 
paid.  By  the  side  of  his  son,  as  by  the  side  of 
Chatham,  Henry  Fox  shrinks  into  insignificance. 
Does  he  shrink  lower  still  ?  Chatham  refused 
the  chance  of  making  the  very  fortune  which 
Fox  made  :  and  Fox's  sons  made  away  with  it 
even  before  it  was  theirs.  There  is  no  virtue 
in  dissipating  a  fortune,  least  of  all  as  Charles 
and  Stephen  Fox  dissipated  theirs  :  and  there 
is  no  vice  in  making  one  if  it  be,  as  the  virtuous 
Evelyn  said  of  the  first  Fox's  fortune,  "  honestly 
gotten  and  unenvied."  But  was  that  the  case 
with  the  fortune  of  Henry  Fox  ?  To  that 
question,  perhaps,  no  unqualified  answer  can 
be  given.  He  certainly  never  was  consciously 


130  HENRY  FOX 

dishonest.  In  many  ways  he  was  a  much 
honester  man  than  most  of  his  contemporaries. 
He  never  knowingly  broke  a  promise  and  never 
forgot  a  friend.  So  says  Lord  Ilchester,  with  a 
good  deal  of  truth  ;  though  the  friends  whom  he 
allowed,  and  even  incited,  his  colleagues  to 
insult  and  disgrace  in  1762  might  not  be  ready 
to  admit  his  only  possible  excuse,  the  necessities 
of  the  King's  service.  Still  his  loyalty  to  his 
personal  if  not  to  his  political  friends  need  not 
be  questioned.  Nor  will  his  truthfulness.  He 
was  too  strong  a  man  to  be  a  liar.  George  II. 
said  of  him,  "  I'll  do  him  justice,  I  don't  believe 
he  ever  did  tell  me  a  lie  "  ;  adding  the  illu- 
minating comment :  "he's  the  only  man  that 
ever  came  into  my  closet  that  did  not."  Yet 
he  accumulated  such  hatred  that  when  Pitt 
resigned  in  1761,  and  Bute  thought  of  Fox,  he 
was  told  it  would  be  madness  to  "go  from  the 
most  popular  man  in  England  to  the  most 
unpopular  "  ;  and  a  few  years  later  the  Livery 
of  London  described  him,  in  a  petition  to  the 
King,  as  "  the  public  defaulter  of  uncounted 
millions."  This  charge  was  untrue  and  collapsed 
at  once  before  inquiry  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
All  the  claims  upon  him  were  met  by  himself  or 
his  executors  ;  and  the  delay  in  settling  them 
was  not  his  or  their  fault.  But  the  fact  remained 
that  he  had  pocketed  sums  that  could  be  described 
as  "  uncounted  millions  "  out  of  public  funds. 
The  system,  which  lasted  till  1780,  allowed  the 
Paymaster  to  retain  in  his  own  hands  large  sums 
of  public  money,  and  to  speculate  with  them  to 


FOX'S  FORTUNE  131 

his  own  profit  in  the  interval  between  receiving 
them  and  paying  them  out.  These  profits  were 
the  lawful  and  admitted  perquisites  of  the 
office.  But  Pitt,  and  even  Henry  Pelham,  had 
refused  to  touch  them.  What  Pitt  desired  was 
power,  not  money,  and  the  last  thing  he  was 
prepared  to  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  money  was 
any  shred  of  his  self-conscious  probity  and 
honour.  When  Fox  took  the  Paymastership  in 
1757  he  gave  up  the  chance  of  power  for  the 
certainty  of  a  fortune.  How  great  that  fortune 
would  be  he  could  not  have  dreamed.  He  could 
not  know  that  the  years  during  which  he  held 
the  office  were  to  be  mostly  years  of  war,  and 
war  carried  on  with  Pitt's  splendid  profusion. 
The  millions  fell  unexpected,  almost  unsought, 
into  Fox's  lap.  They  came  to  a  far  greater 

frize  than  had  fallen  to  any  previous  Paymaster, 
t  was  legal  to  take  them.  But  would  any 
scrupulously  honest  man  have  done  so,  when 
they  became  so  immeasurably  greater  than  any 
figure  that  could  reasonably  be  regarded  as  a 
fair  remuneration  for  the  work  done  ? 

That  is  the  question.  Lord  Ilchester  docs 
not  altogether  defend  Fox,  but  pleads  that  a 
man's  conduct  must  be  judged  by  the  standard 
of  his  day.  So,  perhaps,  it  may  in  fairness 
claim  to  be,  in  spite  of  Acton's  indignant  repudi- 
ation of  the  doctrine  when  Creighton  used  it  in 
excuse  of  the  medieval  Popes.  But  the  difficulty 
is  that  it  will  not  really  serve  in  Fox's  case.  The 
truth  is  that  his  standard  was  that  of  Walpole's 
day,  not  that  of  his  own.  Public  opinion  outside 


132  HENRY  FOX 

the  charmed  circle  of  politicians,  and  within  it 
the  shining  examples  of  Pitt  and  Pelham,  had 
altered  the  standard.  Even  Newcastle,  who 
spent  his  life  doing  jobs  for  others,  would  do 
none  for  himself,  and,  refusing  a  pension,  left 
office  poorer  than  he  entered  upon  it.  That  was 
the  secret  of  Fox's  unpopularity.  It  may  have 
begun  in  hatred  of  his  patron  Cumberland ;  it 
may  have  been  fostered  by  the  intrigues  of 
Leicester  House.  But  what  increased  it  to  the 
odium  which  surrounded  his  later  years  was  an 
immense  fortune,  provoking,  not  only  the  envy 
which,  till  men  are  wiser  and  better,  such 
fortunes,  however  innocent,  will  almost  always 
provoke,  but  the  indignation  inevitably  aroused 
by  great  wealth  acquired  by  light  labours,  at  the 
public  expense,  and  by  methods  condemned  by 
the  best  opinion  and  the  highest  examples  of  the 
time. 

There  it  is  once  more,  the  contrast  between  the 
father  and  the  son  :  between  the  most  detested 
of  our  statesmen  and  the  idol  of  Parliament  and 
people.  The  virtues  of  Henry  Fox  were  almost 
all  private  ;  his  vices  all  public.  The  beloved 
Charles's  vices  were  private  and  his  chief  victim 
himself.  His  virtues  were  public  and  the  fruits 
of  them  were  reaped  by  his  country,  by  all 
Europe,  and,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  by  the 
whole  human  race. 


VII 
LORD   GREY* 

THE  second  Earl  Grey  occupies  a  unique 
position  among  English  Prime  Ministers.  Of 
all  who  held  that  great  office  in  the  nineteenth 
century  only  Portland,  Percival,  Canning,  Code- 
rich,  Wellington,  and  Lord  Rosebery  held  it 
for  a  shorter  time.  And  of  these  Portland  had 
already  been  Prime  Minister  in  1783,  and  all  had 
frequently  held  high  offices  under  other  Prime 
Ministers.  Grey  alone  had  to  form  a  Ministry 
and  govern  the  country  with  practically  no 
previous  official  training.  Over  twenty  years 
before  he  had  been  for  little  more  than  a  year 
a  member  of  the  Ministry  of  All  the  Talents. 
That  was  all.  Yet  this  elderly,  inexperienced 
nobleman,  a  man  of  domestic  tastes,  apathetic 
temperament,  and  no  extraordinary  intellectual 
powers,  carried  the  country  through  the  greatest 
internal  crisis  it  had  known  since  the  Revolution 
and  was  the  author  of  what  still  remains,  after 
nearly  a  hundred  years,  not  only  the  greatest  of 
Reform  Bills  but  the  most  famous  measure  ever 
passed  through  Parliament.  And  both  achieve- 
ments were  to  an  unusual  degree  his  own.  He 
*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  March  25,  1920. 
133  K 


134  LORD   GREY 

had  able  colleagues,  but  it  was  he,  more  than 
any  of  them — more  perhaps  than  all  of  them  put 
together — who  first  prevented  the  popular  excite- 
ment from  boiling  over  into  a  violent  revolution, 
and  then,  avoiding  with  a  skill  which  approaches 
genius  all  the  dangers  which  beset  him  from 
friends  and  foes,  Court  and  Lords,  Commons 
and  people,  made  the  Bill,  which  was  his  Bill, 
the  law  of  the  land.  The  measure  of  his  great- 
ness may  be  stated  in  the  ancient  words  :  after 
him,  except  for  the  brief  Chartist  disturbance, 
"  the  land  had  rest  forty  years."  His  measure 
settled  once  for  all  the  principle  of  Reform  which 
till  then  had  been  angrily  disputed.  It  endured 
unaltered  till  1867,  and  all  subsequent  Bills  have 
been  merely  extensions  of  the  work  it  began. 
More  than  any  other  Act  of  Parliament  it  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  new  era  in  our  history.  It 
meant  that  King  and  Parliament,  threatened 
with  revolution  by  those  outside  the  political 
system,  met  the  threat,  for  the  first  time,  simply 
by  inviting  the  discontented  to  come  inside  and 
share  with  them  both  power  and  responsibility 
That  has  been  our  policy  ever  since  ;  and  it  is 
due  to  it  that  we  alone  among  the  nations  of 
Europe  have  passed  the  ninety  years  since  Grey 
took  office  not  only  without  revolution,  but  almost 
without  such  a  word  as  revolution  being  known 
in  our  current  political  vocabulary.  And  for 
that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  man 
whom  we  have  primarily  and  principally  to 
thank  is  the  man  who  took  the  decisive  step  at 
the  moment  of  danger,  the  man  to  whom  Mr. 


A  MAN   OF  ONE  ACHIEVEMENT      135 

George  Trevelyan  has  here  *  happily  given  a 
title  unknown  to  the  College  of  Heralds,  Lord 
Grey  of  the  Reform  Bill. 

There  is  another  way  in  which  Grey's  position 
among  our  Prime  Ministers  is  unique.  It  is  not 
only  that  he  did  a  far  greater  work  than  any  one 
else  whose  life  as  a  Cabinet  Minister  lasted 
less  than  five  years.  It  is  that  while  he  ranks 
among  the  great  Prime  Ministers  he  owes  his 
greatness,  unlike  any  of  them,  entirely  to  a 
single  achievement.  He  may  have  saved  us 
from  war  with  France  over  the  Belgian  question 
in  1830-32.  But  that  though  a  very  important 
is  also  a  negative  and  hypothetical  service.  On 
the  whole,  he  lives  by  the  Reform  Bill  alone. 
Pitt  was  the  destroyer  of  the  Whig  oligarchy 
and  the  first  of  reforming  Prime  Ministers  before 
he  became  the  "  pilot  that  weathered  the  storm." 
Peel  was  the  creator  of  our  modern  Civil  Service 
before  he  became  the  founder  of  Free  Trade. 
Gladstone  had  attained  his  first  and  most  un- 
disputed title  to  fame  by  his  financial  achieve- 
ments before  he  touched  either  the  Irish  Church 
or  the  franchise  or  Home  Rule.  There  is 
nothing  of  this  in  Grey.  He  emerges  from 
comparative  obscurity  to  carry  the  Reform  Bill, 
and  if  that  had  proved  a  failure  his  name  would 
have  been  entirely  forgotten  in  ten  years.  Even 
as  it  is,  the  Bill  has  been  remembered  far  better 
than  its  author.  And  the  truth  is  that  in  a  sense 

*  "  Lord  Grey  of  the  Reform  Bill :  Being  the  Life  of 
Charles,  second  Earl  Grey,"  by  George  Macaulay 
Trevelyan.  (Longmans.  21*.  net.) 


136  LORD   GREY 

he  owes  as  much  to  it  as  it  to  him.  It  may  be 
that  in  this  case,  as  sometimes  happens,  the  work 
was  greater  than  the  man.  At  least  it  strangely 
inspired  him,  magnifying  altogether  his  moral 
and  intellectual  stature.  Never  before,  and 
never  again,  so  far  as  those  who  now  read  his 
life  can  judge,  was  either  his  will  or  his  judgment 
what  it  was  in  those  fateful  two  years  between 
the  day  he  took  office  in  1830  and  the  day  the 
Bill  passed  into  law  in  1832.  This  book  is  the 
record  of  an  interesting  life  and  a  delightful 
personality.  But  except  for  those  two  years  it 
would  never  have  been  written  or  even  thought 
of. 

Mr.  Trevelyan  has  many  qualifications  for 
his  task.  The  son  of  his  father,  the  great- 
nephew  of  Macaulay,  could  not  but  be  born 
with  the  Whig  tradition  in  his  blood,  could  not 
but  be  nurtured  in  its  lore  from  his  very  cradle. 
There  are  two — perhaps  only  two — very  great 
moments  in  the  history  of  the  Whigs — the  two 
moments  in  which  they  saved  England,  1688 
and  1832.  Macaulay  wrote  the  history  of  the 
one  and  played  his  part  in  the  other.  Sir  George 
Trevelyan  was  brought  up  at  his  uncle's  feet 
and  wrote  his  life  ;  and  he  himself  was  one  of 
the  chief  actors  in  that  movement  for  the  exten- 
sion of  the  vote  to  the  agricultural  labourer, 
finally  carried  out  in  1885,  which  completed  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  householder  begun  in 
1832.  His  son,  the  writer  of  this  book,  has 
never  sat  in  Parliament.  But  ever  since  the 
world  knew  anything  about  him,  and  probably 


MR.  GEORGE  TREVELYAN       137 

long  before,  he  has  shown  his  devotion  to  the 
double  family  tradition  of  history  and  politics. 
Names  change  and  ideas  grow.  The  Liberal 
of  to-day  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  Whig  of 
1688,  or  even  of  1832.  But  he  is  after  all  the 
son  of  his  father,  and,  if  he  is  a  wise  man,  is 
proud  of  it.  That  is  what  Mr.  Trevelyan 
certainly  is.  The  creed  which  his  father  in- 
herited from  Macaulay,  which  Macaulay  imbibed 
at  Holland  House  and  expounded  in  his  History, 
the  creed  of  religious  and  political  liberty,  has 
always  been  his  creed.  And  few  in  this  genera- 
tion have  served  it  better  than  the  historian  of 
Wycliffe,  of  the  Long  Parliament,  of  Garibaldi, 
of  John  Bright,  and  now  of  Lord  Grey  of  the 
Reform  Bill. 

At  first  sight  these  would  appear  to  be  strange 
heroes  for  a  historian  nursed  in  the  Whig 
tradition.  But  observe  one  thing.  They  are 
all  practical  men.  They  are  all  men  who  prefer 
half  a  loaf  to  no  bread.  But  for  the  opposition 
of  the  Army  the  Long  Parliament  would  have 
come  to  terms  with  Charles  I.  Garibaldi 
worked  with  Victor  Emmanuel  as  soon  as  he  saw 
that  Monarchy  could  do  for  Italy  what  a  Republic 
could  not  do.  And  both  Wycliffe  and  Bright 
were  nearer  to  Garibaldi  and  the  moderate 
majority  of  the  Long  Parliament  than  they  were 
to  the  Fifth  Monarchy  men,  the  Levellers,  or 
Mazzini.  That  spirit  of  practical  compromise, 
of  being  content  to  take  what  one  can  get  and 
move  step  by  step,  advancing  to  the  future 
without  losing  touch  with  the  past,  is  the  very 


138  LORD  GREY 

essence  of  Whiggism.  It  is  the  first  article  in 
the  creed  which  the  Whigs  taught  England  in 
1688,  and  which  all  English  parties,  with  varying 
degrees  of  willingness  and  intelligence,  have 
practised  ever  since  :  the  creed  which  for  200 
years  has  made  the  English  combination  of 
stability  and  progress  the  wonder  and  envy  of  a 
Europe  almost  always  in  danger  of  falling  a  prey 
either  to  stereotyped  conservatism  or  to  imprac- 
ticable idealism.  Its  records  do  not  make  such 
picturesque  reading  as  those  of  the  uncom- 
promising dreamers  and  revolutionaries.  But 
if  its  colours  are  not  so  rich,  they  have  the 
advantage  of  wearing  well.  Cromwell  is  a  more 
interesting  figure  than  the  Whig  lords  of  1688, 
but  his  work  disappeared  with  him,  while  theirs 
lasted  for  150  years.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  to 
have  contained  within  it  not  only  1832  but  1867, 
1885,  and  1917.  So,  some  would  say,  in 
matters  of  religion.  Luther  and  Calvin  were 
greater  men  than  Cranmer,  but  England  retains 
to-day  much  more  of  Cranmer  than  Germany 
or  France  retain  of  his  greater  rivals.  And  so, 
to  come  back  to  Mr.  Trevelyan,  with  his  latest 
hero,  Lord  Grey.  The  men  who  revolutionised 
France  when  he  was  a  young  member  of  Parlia- 
ment will  always  be  much  more  famous,  or 
notorious,  than  he.  But  their  political  edifice 
crumbled  at  once  into  dust  at  the  breath  of 
Napoleon,  and  they  left  their  country  to  be  the 
sport  for  eighty  years  of  alternate  revolution  and 
reaction.  Lord  Grey's  less  original  structure 
still  stands  unshaken.  Some  of  its  chief  features 


ENGLISH  POLITICAL  HISTORY    139 

have  been  modified  or  developed  to  meet  new 
needs.  But  not  one  has  been  destroyed,  and 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  building 
of  to-day  as  that  which  he  reconstructed  with 
such  an  admirable  mixture  of  boldness  and 
reverence. 

Mr.  Trevelyan's  book  is  a  record  of  the  long 
apprenticeship  served  by  Lord  Grey  and  of  the 
four  hurried  and  crowded  years  in  which  he  at 
last  had  the  chance  of  practising  his  art  with 
the  freedom  and  authority  of  a  master.  Every 
one  who  knows  Mr.  Trevelyan's  previous  books 
will  be  sure  beforehand  that  this  tale,  like  the 
others,  loses  nothing  in  the  telling.  Of  course 
it  cannot  compare  in  interest  for  a  moment  with 
the  story  of  the  Liberation  of  Italy.  Lord  Grey 
is  no  rival  to  Garibaldi,  and  the  greatest  of 
Parliamentary  struggles  makes  very  tame  reading 
after  the  immortal  adventure  of  the  Thousand. 
The  appeal  of  the  new  book  is  altogether  narrower. 
It  is  to  England  instead  of  to  the  world.  It  is 
to  those  who  like  the  study  of  Parliamentary 
history  instead  of  to  those  who  like  "  moving 
accidents  by  flood  and  field."  But  within  its 
own  limits  and  for  its  own  public  the  work  could 
not  be  better  done,  and  will  confirm  and  establish 
its  author's  reputation  as  a  biographer  and 
historian.  It  is  brilliantly  written,  and  the  right 
reader,  especially  the  lover  of  English  political 
history,  so  much  the  most  interesting  and 
important  in  the  world,  will  not  willingly  lay  it 
down  till  he  has  drunk  his  cup  of  pleasure  to  the 
last  drop.  It  is  full,  too,  of  interesting  judgments 


140  LORD  GREY 

on  matters  which  only  incidentally  come  within 
its  scope.  Pitt  and  Fox,  for  instance,  are  an  old 
story.  But  the  contrast  between  them  has  not 
often  been  better  put  than  it  is  here  : — 

The  wits  of  Brooks's  jested  about  Pitt's  youth. 
But  in  fact  he  was  prematurely  old  in  spirit — 
cautious,  dignified, formidable,'experienced,  laborious, 
wise  ;  but  with  a  mind  that,  after  a  splendid  spring- 
time, too  soon  became  closed  to  generous  enthu- 
siasms and  new  ideas,  and  ceased  to  understand 
human  nature  save  as  it  is  known  to  a  shrewd  and 
cynical  Government  Whip.  He  was  still  being 
twitted  as  "  the  schoolboy  "  when  he  had  acquired 
all  the  characteristics  of  the  schoolmaster.  While 
Fox  always  retained  the  faults  and  merits  of  youth, 
Pitt  early  acquired  those  of  old  age. 

More  original,  though  not  more  interesting 
— for  nothing  political  ever  equalled  the  interest 
of  the  story  of  Pitt  and  Fox  except  the  story  of 
Pitt's  father — is  a  judgment  of  the  great  political 
world  of  that  day.  Mr.  Trevelyan  is  a  Liberal, 
even  a  Radical,  as  all  his  books  show.  But  he 
remarks  of  Grey's  first  speech  that 

by  a  brilliant  piece  of  invective  on  the  wrong  side 
of  a  subject  that  he  did  not  understand  Grey  at 
once  became  one  of  the  most  envied  in  that  most 
enviable  of  all  the  aristocracies  of  history,  the  men 
and  women  who  look  out  from  the  can  vases  of  Reynolds 
and  Romney  with  a  divine  self-satisfaction,  bred  of 
unchallenged  possession  of  all  that  was  really  best 
in  a  great  civilization. 

A  little  later  he  describes  the  transformation  of 
that  splendid  society,  which,  as  he  says,  had 


THE  ENGLISH  ARISTOCRACY    141 

"  neither  the  virtues  nor  the  vices  of  the  austere  " 
till  it  was  frightened  by  the  French  Revolution 
and  reclaimed  by  the  Evangelical  movement. 
He  gives  it  in  an  interesting  parallel.  "  The 
change  from  the  high  society  that  Fox  led  to 
that  of  the  generation  which  ostracised  Byron 
is  an  English  version  of  the  change  from  the 
Renaissance  Courts  of  the  early  Cinque  Cento 
to  the  Italy  of  the  Jesuit  reaction."  So  again  it 
is  a  striking  remark  that  if  the  Whigs  who  fought 
Pitt's  measures  of  repression  had  not  been  great 
aristocrats  they  "  would  not  then  have  dared  to 
side  with  democracy."  Only  their  aristocratic 
indifference  to  unpopularity  made  it  possible 
for  them  to  maintain  in  the  darkest  days  such 
causes  as  those  of  Reform  and  Catholic  Emanci- 
pation. From  the  heights  of  Devonshire  House 
they  could  look  down  with  contempt  on  the 
hostility  of  all  the  squires  and  manufacturers  in 
the  country.  Occasionally  these  judgments  of 
Mr.  Trevelyan's  invite  question  or  qualification. 
He  makes  the  interesting  remark  that  up  to  the 
death  of  Queen  Anne  General  Elections  were 
decided  by  the  changes  of  political  opinion  in 
the  country,  so  that  England  was  able  to  enforce 
her  will  in  every  big  question  that  came  up,  but 
that  afterwards  the  nation  was  helpless  in  the 
hands  of  the  boroughmongers.  This  is  largely 
true,  of  course  ;  but,  without  holding  Burke's 
strange  doctrine  of  the  sacrosanctity  of  rotten 
boroughs,  one  may  admit  that  it  was  by  the 
pressure  of  public  opinion  that  Chatham  rose  to 
power  and  Bute  and  North  fell ;  that  it  was  the 


142  LORD   GREY 

unreformed  constituencies  who  gave  Pitt  his 
great  majority  in  1784,  and  that  it  was  still  they, 
with  all  the  rotten  boroughs  intact,  which 
elected  the  Parliament  that  reformed  itself  and 
destroyed  the  old  system.  The  truth  surely  is 
that  the  reason  why  the  French  had  revolution 
while  we  had  reform  was  that  in  France  before 
1789  the  Government  could  totally  disregard 
public  opinion,  however  strong,  while  in  England 
it  never  altogether  could.  Even  the  all-powerful 
Pitt  of  1794  had  to  draw  back  from  his  prose- 
cutions for  sedition  when  London  juries  taught 
him  that  public  opinion  felt  he  was  going  too 
far. 

These  illustrations  show  that  the  book  is 
more  than  a  mere  Life  of  Grey.  It  was  under- 
taken at  the  request  of  the  late  Earl  Grey,  and 
in  writing  it  Mr.  Trevelyan  has  had  free  access 
to  the  family  papers  at  Howick  as  well  as  to 
others  referring  to  his  subject  at  Holland  House 
and  Lambton  Castle  ;  and  he  acknowledges  his 
obligations  to  Sir  Algernon  West,  Lord  Spencer, 
and  Lord  Grey's  grandson,  the  present  Lord 
Halifax,  for  the  communication  of  other  docu- 
ments and  family  traditions.  But  from  the  first 
he  intended  to  go,  and  he  has  gone,  outside  the 
merely  biographical  field.  He  has  used  materials 
provided  by  the  British  Museum  and  the  Home 
Office  to  show  the  state  of  public  opinion,  and 
especially  the  feelings  of  the  working  classes, 
throughout  Grey's  life,  and  especially  during 
the  two  critical  periods,  that  of  1793-97,  wnen 
he  was  making  Reform  motions  in  a  hostile 


GREY  AND  THE  PEOPLE        143 

Parliament,  and  that  of  1830-32,  when  his 
firmness  forced  his  Bill  through  Parliament 
unaltered,  and  in  the  judgment  of  Mr.  Trevelyan, 
"  averted  civil  war  and  saved  the  State  from 
entering  on  the  vicious  circle  of  revolution  and 
reaction." 

On  both  these  occasions  Grey  was  very 
closely  concerned  with  the  excited  state  of 
working-class  opinion,  on  the  first  as  the 
Parliamentary  leader  of  the  Reformers,  on  the 
second  as  the  head  of  the  Government  responsible 
for  the  King's  peace.  Perhaps  Mr.  Trevelyan, 
seeing  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  his  hero, 
underrates  the  danger  in  1794  and  exaggerates 
it  in  1832.  Finding  as  he  does  that  in  "  the 
days  of  May,"  1832,  neither  the  private  corre- 
spondence of  Wellington,  Peel,  and  Croker,  nor 
that  of  Grey,  Althorp,  and  Holland,  contains 
any  allusion  to  the  fear  of  armed  rebellion  if  the 
Duke  took  office,  he  concludes  that  "  noblesse 
obliged  them  to  avoid  allusion  to  a  subject  so 
indecorous."  But  this  seems  rather  far-fetched. 
Wellington,  at  any  rate,  was  never  afraid  of 
calling  a  spade  a  spade.  A  likelier  explanation 
is  that  he,  and  the  others,  believed  that  the 
danger  was  not  so  great  as  Mr.  Trevelyan  thinks, 
and  that  any  armed  rebellion  could  have  been 
put  down.  It  was  the  attitude  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  not  the  threats  of  the  agitators,  which 
forced  the  Duke  to  retreat.  It  may  seem  to  a 
good  many  readers  that  Mr.  Trevelyan  makes 
the  opposite  mistake  about  1794.  Nobody  now 
defends  all  the  measures  then  taken  by  Pitt,  still 


144  LORD   GREY 

less  all,  one  might  almost  say  any,  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Scottish  Judges.  But  nobody 
who  judges  Pitt  ought  to  forget,  as  Mr.  Trevelyan 
is  too  much  inclined  to  do,  the  contrast  between 
1830  and  1794.  It  is  the  contrast  between 
Louis  Philippe  and  Robespierre.  The  Revolu- 
tion of  1830  excited  England,  but  it  was  a  very 
different  thing  from  its  predecessor,  which,  as 
Lord  Rosebery  has  pointed  out,  was  "  encouraging 
revolt  in  England  and  promising  support  to 
rebellion  before  any  exceptional  measures  were 
taken  by  the  British  Government."  It  seems 
certain  now  that  Pitt  exaggerated  the  danger. 
The  folly  of  the  Reformers  who  consorted  with 
the  Paris  Jacobins  and  called  themselves 
"  citizens  "  at  once  involved  them  in  the  extreme 
unpopularity  of  the  French,  and  Pitt's  measures 
of  repression  were,  as  his  enemies  themselves 
admit,  popular  even  among  the  mass  of  the 
working  classes.  Pitt  would  be  a  greater  man  if 
he  had  known  his  countrymen  better  and  trusted 
them  more.  But  the  French  Revolution  was  a 
portent  without  precedent  or  parallel.  Pitt  saw 
France  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  a  small  body  of 
cruel  fanatics  ;  he  was  resolved  to  take  no  risks 
in  England  ;  and,  if  he  is  to  be  blamed,  it  is  not 
for  that  resolve,  but  for  not  being  so  far  in  advance 
of  his  time  as  to  perceive  that  against  revolution 
the  best  weapon  is  generally  not  repression,  but 
reform. 

Grey,  unfettered  by  the  responsibilities  of 
office,  was  free  to  advocate  a  more  generous 
policy.  He  made  motions  for  reform  in  1792, 


WHIGS   BECOME  LIBERALS       145 

1793,  and  in  1797.  He  opposed  Pitt's  policy  of 
fear  and  repression.  And,  what  was  more 
important  still,  he,  more  than  any  man,  pre- 
pared the  Whigs  to  become  the  Liberal  Party. 
If  Burke  and  Portland  had  carried  the  Whigs 
with  them,  Reform  could  only  have  come  from 
the  Radicals,  and  our  present  dangerous  hori- 
zontal divisions  of  party  would  have  been 
anticipated  by  a  hundred  years.  As  it  was,  when 
Grey  founded  the  Friends  of  the  People  in 
April,  1792,  he  took  as  momentous  a  step  as 
when,  forty  years  later,  he  insisted  on  his  Reform 
Bill.  There  was  not,  indeed,  anything  abso- 
lutely new  in  the  existence  of  such  a  body,  for 
there  had  been  Reform  associations,  to  which 
Pitt  had  belonged,  before  it.  What  was  new 
was  the  connexion  of  such  an  association  with  a 
great  party,  which  was  achieved  as  soon  as  Grey 
had  secured  the  support  of  Fox.  The  anti- 
Reform  Whigs  then  left  the  party  and  the 
Whigs  were  definitely  committed  to  Reform. 

One  other  point,  the  last  that  can  be  touched 
on  here.  The  ultimate  significance  of  a  step  is 
often  unperceived  by  those  who  take  it.  The 
Friends  of  the  People  were  a  small  body,  only 
about  150  in  all.  They  were  all  "  noblemen 
and  gentlemen."  But  when  Grey  and  Lauder- 
dale  placed  their  aristocratic  names  at  the  head 
of  a  body  of  that  kind  they  started  on  a  course 
from  which  there  could  be  no  turning  back.  In 
vain  they  dissociated  themselves  from  other  and 
more  democratic  societies  which  shared  their 
aims  and  added  others  not  theirs.  The  Tories 


146  LORD   GREY 

who  denounced  them  knew  better.  The  decisive 
step  had  been  taken.  From  that  day  forward 
the  Whig  Party  would  throw  itself  slowly  but 
increasingly  on  the  public  opinion  of  the  country, 
and  would  ultimately  force  all  parties  to  do  the 
same.  When  Peel  was  victorious  in  1841, 
Disraeli  in  1874,  Salisbury  in  1886,  their  victories 
were  not  those  of  the  old  forces  by  which  North 
and  even  Pitt  had  ruled  the  country.  They 
were  the  victories  of  public  opinion,  of  free 
debate  and  discussion,  of  a  method  less  and  less 
easily  distinguished  from  what  was  once  de- 
nounced as  political  agitation.  The  germs  of  all 
these  things,  and  of  how  much  else  that  he 
could  not  dream  of,  lay  in  Grey's  Friends  of 
the  People.  The  end  is  not  yet.  The  will  of 
the  nation,  ascertained  by  the  polling  booth 
after  open  discussion,  is  now  the  acknowledged 
arbiter  of  all  political  issues.  If  its  title  is  ever 
disputed,  it  is  no  longer  by  the  Right  but  by 
the  Extreme  Left.  But  we  did  not  adopt  a 
French  solution  of  our  difficulties  130  years  ago, 
and  the  English  character  must  have  greatly 
changed  if  we  adopt  a  Russian  solution  to-day. 
It  is  not  likely  that  even  the  earthquake  shock 
of  the  war  has  transformed  us  into  dreamers, 
extremists,  or  fanatics.  After  it,  as  before, 
England  will  probably  remain  the  land  of 
common  sense,  compromise,  and  practical  pro- 
gress. And  if  it  does,  it  will  never  cease  to 
honour  the  Whigs  who,  in  liberty's  evil  days, 
fought  against  repression,  defended  free  speech, 
abolished  slavery,  and  finally  gave  the  country 


FOX  AND  GREY  147 

Reform  without  revolution.  And  among  them, 
after  the  beloved  name  of  Fox,  it  will  remember 
no  one  with  more  gratitude  than  that  distinguished 
aristocrat  who  laid  the  legal  foundations  of 
democracy,  Charles  Lord  Grey  of  the  Reform 
Bill. 


VIII 
LORD   RANDOLPH   CHURCHILL* 

WITH  a  single  exception,  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill's  rise  to  the  first  place  in  the  House  of 
Commons  is  the  most  dazzling  personal  triumph 
in  English  Parliamentary  history.  No  parallel  can 
be  found  to  it  except  that  which  goes  far  beyond 
a  parallel,  the  amazing  victory  which,  exactly  a 
hundred  years  before,  the  genius  and  courage  of 
a  boy  of  twenty-four  won  over  the  united  forces 
of  all  the  veterans  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
That  achievement  stands  alone  ;  and  its  equal 
is  not  likely  to  be  found,  even  though  the  House 
of  Commons  should  live  another  500  years. 
But  such  parallel  as  there  is  anywhere  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  career  of  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  f 
In  January,  1781,  Pitt  was  only  a  proud  boy, 
who  had  inherited  the  greatest  of  all  political 
names.  Three  years  later  he  was  Prime  Minister. 
In  1 88 1  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  was  the  leader 
of  a  party  of  four,  and  he  and  his  party  were  the 
established  political  joke  of  the  day.  In  1886  he 
was  the  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons,  with 
every  eye  fixed  on  him  as  the  man  of  the  future. 
But  there,  except  for  the  brevity  of  the  two  lives, 
the  parallel  ends  altogether.  The  swiftness  of 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  January  5, 1906. 
t  "  Lord    Randolph   Churchill,"  by  Winston    Spencer 
Churchill,  M.P.     Two  volumes.    (Macmillan.    36*.  net.) 
148 


PITT  AND   LORD   RANDOLPH    149 

Pitt's  rise  to  power  was  scarcely  more  remarkable 
than  the  tenacity  with  which  he  retained  it. 
Lord  Randolph's  fall  was  even  swifter  than  his 
rise.  And  it  was  final.  When  Pitt  died  in 
1806,  of  the  forty-six  years  of  his  life  nearly 
twenty  had  been  passed  as  Prime  Minister. 
Lord  Randolph  was  also  on  the  point  of  being 
forty-six  when  he  died  ;  but  he  had  known  only 
a  year  of  office  and  only  six  months  of  power. 
Perhaps  the  story  that  Mr.  Winston  Churchill 
tells  in  this  book  loses  nothing  from  the  sense  of 
the  impending  catastrophe  which  must  be  in  the 
mind  of  every  one  who  reads  it.  There  is, 
indeed,  in  Lord  Randolph's  career  a  comedy,  a 
history,  and  a  tragedy  ;  a  comedy  of  irresponsible 
youth — Blenheim  Harriers,  and  rehearsals  at 
hunt  dinners  of  the  Jack  the  Giant  Killer 
impudences  which  were  afterwards  to  stagger 
more  important  assemblies  ;  next,  from  1883-86, 
a  history  in  which,  with  Napoleonic  vigour, 
speed,  and  ruthlessness,  he  transforms  his  party, 
leads  it  to  victory,  and  becomes  himself  the  most 
powerful  man  in  England  ;  and  then,  from  1887 
to  1895,  a  tragedy  in  which  those  ancient  forces, 
fate  and  a  too  free  will,  both  play  their  parts, 
till  the  curtain  falls  on  the  last  sad  months  in 
which  the  indomitable  courage  of  the  victim 
only  increases  the  pain  of  those  who  watch  him 
die.  Never  was  there  a  case  in  which  we  so 
inevitably  think  the  thoughts  which  an  obscurer 
political  tragedy  drew  from  Burke  : — "  What 
shadows  we  are,  and  what  shadows  we  pursue  !  " 
It  is  a  pleasure  to  be  able  to  say  that  a  life  so 

L 


150     LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

well  worth  writing  has  been  admirably  written. 
Sons  have  not  always  proved  the  most  judicious 
of  biographers,  and  Mr.  Winston  Churchill's 
warmest  admirers  would  not  ask  us  to  think  him 
the  most  judicious  of  men.  But  here  is  a  book 
which  is  certainly  among  the  two  or  three  most 
exciting  political  biographies  in  the  language, 
and  yet  the  young  Achilles  has  done  due  honour 
to  Patroclus  without  sacrificing  any  slaughtered 
Trojans  on  the  funeral  pyre.  The  book  is  a  son's 
book,  of  course,  written  from  a  particular  point 
of  view  ;  and  there  are,  of  course,  things  which 
might  be  said  against  Lord  Randolph  Churchill 
but  are  not  said  here.  That  is  inevitable  ;  but 
the  worst  kind  of  biographer  is  not  he  who  has 
a  point  of  view,  but  he  who  has  not — and  certainly 
Mr.  Winston  Churchill  has  not  unduly  obtruded 
his.  One  hears  the  son's  voice  in  a  good  many 
places,  and  hears  it  willingly ;  the  voice  of  the 
politician  one  hardly  ever  hears.  Good  taste 
has  not  generally  been  considered  the  strong 
point  either  of  the  biographer  or  of  his  father  ; 
nor  has  either  of  them  been  conspicuous  for 
self-restraint.  But  the  severest  critic  will  find 
very  few  lapses  of  taste  in  this  book  ;  and  for 
those  few  it  is  not  the  writer's  pen,  but  his 
subject's  tongue,  that  is  responsible.  And  as 
for  self-restraint,  who  could  have  believed  that 
Mr.  Winston  Churchill  could  write  a  book  that 
is  full  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  not  altogether 
empty  of  Mr.  Balfour,  and  yet  write  it  like  an 
historian,  and  not  at  all  like  a  man  on  a  party 
platform  ?  But  he  has.  Even  the  temptation 


THE   INTEREST  OF  THIS  LIFE    151 

of  the  fair  trade  controversy,  and  Lord  Randolph's 
conversion  to  economic  orthodoxy,  has  not  made 
him  swerve  from  the  path  of  virtue.  Once,  and 
once  only,  so  far  as  we  have  noticed,  does  he 
indulge  himself  in  the  luxury  of  using  the  past 
to  point  the  moral  of  the  present.  And  then  the 
allusion  is  as  innocent  as  it  is  isolated.  It  occurs 
in  the  account  of  his  father's  resignation.  "  It 
is  no  doubt  true  that  he  rated  his  own  power  .  .  . 
too  high.  Like  many  a  successful  man  before 
him — and  some  since — he  thought  the  forces  he 
had  directed  in  the  past  were  resident  in  himself, 
whereas  they  were  to  some  extent  outside  him- 
self and  independent."  The  italics  are  not  in  the 
original ;  and,  even  with  their  assistance,  this 
single  shaft  shot  at  our  existing  political  actualities 
can  hardly  be  said  to  look  very  venomous. 

But  let  there  be  no  mistake.  Virtue  does  not 
necessarily  imply  dullness.  The  book  is,  on  the 
whole,  a  serious  and  fair-minded  record  of 
Lord  Randolph's  career.  But  its  interest  never 
flags  for  a  moment.  No  one  who  cares  for 
politics  will  willingly  put  it  down  when  it  is 
once  in  his  hands.  People  who  do  not  care  for 
politics  had  better  not  touch  it.  There  are 
other  lives  of  politicians  which  may  suit  them, 
but  not  this.  Mr.  Gladstone,  for  instance, 
might  have  been  an  Archbishop,  if  fate  had  so 
willed  it,  or  a  college  don  ;  so  thaj:  Mr.  Morley 
was  certain  beforehand  of  a  large  circle  of  academic 
and  ecclesiastical  readers.  But  no  one  can 
imagine  Lord  Randolph  anything  but  a  politician. 
And  whatever  else  he  was  is  not  the  concern  of 


152    LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

this  book.  It  is  written  for  politicians ;  and 
by  them  it  will  be  read  eagerly,  excitedly,  and 
often  enthusiastically,  from  the  first  page  to  the 
last.  There  is  every  dish  in  it  that  can  whet 
their  palates  ;  all  the  things  that  every  one  wants 
to  know  and  only  a  very  few  can  find  out ;  the 
real  views  that  lie  behind  the  plausibilities  of 
the  platform,  the  private  relations  that  lie  behind 
public  politeness,  all  the  secret  springs  of  which 
the  world  sees  only  the  resulting  acts.  And  yet 
it  is  no  book  of  the  backstairs.  The  revelations 
are  of  things  of  real  interest,  and  are  given  in 
letters  from  the  actors  themselves  published 
with  their  consent.  Sir  Michael  Hicks  Beach, 
who  was  more  closely  associated  with  Lord 
Randolph  in  his  two  great  years  than  any  one 
else,  has  "  thoroughly  revised  the  whole  book." 
A  large  number  of  letters  to  and  from  Lord 
Salisbury  and  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  some  to 
and  from  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  give  the 
changing  picture  of  his  relations  with  each.  It  is 
characteristic  of  his  hot-headedness  that  with 
each  there  is  a  sharp  quarrel.  And  yet,  for  all 
these  exciting  personalities,  there  are  no  windows 
broken ;  unless,  indeed,  it  be  those  of  the 
Cabinet.  How  far  will  that  august  and  so 
edifying  fiction,  the  unity  of  the  Cabinet,  survive 
the  successive  attacks  of  Mr.  Morley,  Lord 
Edmond  Fitzmaurice,  and  Mr.  Churchill  ? 
Perhaps  no  one  ever  believed  it  in  the  inner 
chamber  of  his  mind  ;  but  no  one  goes  into 
those  inner  chambers  very  often ;  and  for 
daylight  and  the  street  and  the  platform,  it 


THE  CABINET  153 

passed  very  well  as  one  of  the  solemn  plausi- 
bilities of  our  political  system.  But  will  that  be 
possible  any  longer  after  the  man  in  the  street 
has  seen  Lord  Randolph  "  alone  in  the  Cabinet  " 
of  which  the  world  supposed  him  to  be  the  most 
powerful  member,  Lord  Salisbury  wishing  there 
were  "  no  such  thing  as  Local  Government  " 
after  an  eirenicon  which  he  had  proposed  had  been 
abruptly  rejected  by  his  colleagues,  and,  most 
startling  of  all,  Mr.  Gladstone  rejoicing  over 
"  only  three  resignations  "  at  a  Cabinet  meeting  ? 
However,  nothing  would  have  disturbed  Lord 
Randolph  less  than  that  he,  or  his  Life,  should 
be  the  means  of  exploding  any  number  of 
venerable  fictions.  And  for  the  rest  of  us,  it  is 
a  satisfaction  to  observe  that,  if  the  corporate 
Cabinet  suffers,  the  individuals  that  compose  it 
come  out,  for  the  most  part,  unscathed.  The 
wisdom  and  patience  and  self-abnegation  of 
Lord  Salisbury,  to  whose  great  qualities  Mr. 
Churchill  pays  more  than  one  generous  tribute, 
the  "  grave,  calm,  slow-moving  "  mind  of  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  the  sacrifices  of  office  and 
power  and  political  prospects  actually  made  by 
the  Duke  and  Lord  James  and  Mr.  Chamberlain, 
on  the  Liberal  Unionist  side,  and  met,  on  the 
Conservative  side,  by  the  most  evidently  sincere 
offers  of  the  same  self-abnegation  on  the  part  of 
Lord  Salisbury  and  Lord  Randolph  Churchill — 
these  things  all  come  to  give  us  a  feeling  that, 
after  all  has  been  said,  English  public  life  is  still 
a  thing  we  have  a  right  to  be  proud  of,  a  great 
life,  greatly  and  honourably  lived. 


154    LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

However,  one  may  hope  that  there  is  nothing 
new  or  surprising  about  this ;  though  there  are 
people  who  will  say  that  a  Life  of  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill  is  not  exactly  the  place  where  they 
would  have  expected  to  discover  such  consola- 
tion. But  that  is  part  of  the  interest  of  the  book  ; 
it  contains  a  good  many  things  that  one  would 
not  expect  to  find  in  it.  Who,  for  instance, 
except  the  very  few  who  have  been  behind  the 
most  secret  political  curtains,  will  not  be  surprised 
to  learn  that  the  first  meeting  between  Lord 
Salisbury  and  Mr.  Chamberlain  occurred  at  the 
Turf  Club,  of  all  places  in  the  world  ?  Napoleon 
and  Alexander  met  to  divide  the  world  on  the 
neutral  ground  of  a  boat  moored  in  the  middle 
of  the  Niemen  ;  and  if,  for  these  meetings  of 
great  potentates,  a  place  has  to  be  found  where 
neither  will  feel  himself  too  much  at  home, 
Lord  Randolph,  who  arranged  this  meeting,  may 
be  congratulated  on  the  abundant  fitness  of  the 
ground  he  chose.  Certainly  he  meant  to  succeed. 
This  book  brings  out  how  eagerly  from  the  first 
he  pressed  a  coalition  on  Lord  Salisbury.  In 
November,  1885,  directly  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
known  to  be  committed  to  Home  Rule,  he 
wrote : — 

I  think  you  ought  to  negotiate  with  the  other  side, 
giving  Harrington  India,  Goschen  Home  Office, 
and  Rosebery  Scotch  Office.  You  will  never  get 
Whig  support  so  long  as  I  am  in  the  Government, 
and  Whig  support  you  must  have. 

To  which  Lord  Salisbury  drily  replied,  "  They 


LORD   RANDOLPH'S   BUDGET     155 

hate  me  as  much  as  they  hate  you  "  :  an,d,  some 
months  later  : — 

I  observe  that  Hartington,  whenever  he  has  the 
chance,  dwells  with  so  much  conviction  upon  my 
"  rashness,'*  etc.,  that  I  suspect  I  am  more  the 
difficulty  than  you.  I  believe  the  G.O.M.,  if  he 
were  driven  to  so  frightful  a  dilemma,  would  rather 
work  with  me  than  with  you  ;  but  that  with  Harting- 
ton it  is  the  reverse. 

The  whole  of  the  story  of  the  years  1885-87 
and  the  gradual  passage  of  the  Liberal  Unionists 
from  correspondence  with  Mr.  Gladstone  to 
co-operation  with  Lord  Salisbury  is  told  here 
with  an  authoritative  fullness  which  is  at  once 
new  and  final.  Mr.  Morley  had  told  it  from 
the  other  side  ;  he  could  not  tell  it  from  this. 
Among  other  new  things  in  the  book  the  most 
startling  is  probably  the  fact  that  Lord  Randolph 
resigned  the  India  Office  in  August,  1885, 
because  Lord  Salisbury  had  sent  Lord  Dufferin 
a  letter  from  the  Queen  about  an  appointment 
for  the  Duke  of  Connaught  without  making  any 
communication  with  him  ;  and  the  most  im- 
portant is  the  elaborate  Budget  scheme  he  had 
submitted  to  the  Cabinet  before  his  final  resigna- 
tion. Of  that  it  is  enough  to  say  here  that  even 
its  author  never  produced  anything  bolder,  and 
that  no  Budget  since* — not  even  the  famous 
one  of  Sir  William  Harcourt — has  made  anything 
like  such  a  courageous  attempt  to  cover  the  whole 
ground.  Budgets  have  always  proved  slippery 
*  Written,  of  course,  in  January,  1906. 


156    LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

things,  and  probably  even  Lord  Randolph's 
tenacious  fingers  would  not  have  managed  to 
hold  this  intact  to  the  end.  Its  main  lines  were 
sweeping  reductions  of  the  income-tax  and  the 
tea  and  tobacco  duties  met  by  a  complete  recon- 
struction of  the  death  and  house  duties  on  a 
graduated  scale,  and  by  several  new  taxes.  But 
more  exciting  than  either  the  Budget  or  the  first 
resignation,  and  almost  equally  new  as  far  as 
the  details  are  concerned,  are  the  accounts  of 
the  defeat  of  Lord  Salisbury  and  capture  of  the 
National  Union  in  1884,  of  the  formation  of  the 
two  Ministries  of  1885  and  1886,  and  of  the 
final  resignation  at  the  end  of  the  latter  year. 
There  are  many  people  who  find — some  of  them 
half  against  the  grain — that  Westminster  and 
Pall  Mall  are,  for  them,  the  most  interesting 
places  in  all  the  world,  and  the  game  of  politics 
its  only  really  exciting  game  ;  and  by  all  of  them 
these  chapters  will  be  devoured  with  breathless 
eagerness.  They  will  at  least  have  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  their  favourite  game  splendidly  and 
audaciously  played.  Lord  Randolph  knew  what 
he  wanted  from  the  first  and  meant  to  have  it. 
He  had  unbounded  confidence  in  himself,  and 
might  have  said  in  the  early  eighties,  almost  in 
the  first  Pitt's  words,  "  I  know  that  I  can  save 
this  party  and  I  know  that  no  one  else  can."  He 
was  not  a  man  to  lose  time  in  the  "  beatific  state 
of  chronic  deliberation "  which  he  found  so 
common  in  the  Cabinet  when  he  got  there.  The 
Tory  party  appeared  to  him  to  be  going  to  sleep, 
and  he  did  not  care  whose  bones  were  broken 


THE   SOLDIER   OF  POLITICS     157 

in  the  process  of  waking  it  up.  He  chose  his 
ground  well,  and  when  he  had  taken  his  stand 
on  it  he  never  once  retreated.  All  through  these 
controversies  he  showed  a  great  soldier's  instinct 
in  taking  up  a  strong  position,  luring  the  enemy 
into  a  weak  one,  and  then  smiting  him  in  full 
strength  and  without  a  moment's  delay.  And, 
so  far  as  politics  are  a  mere  game  to  be  played, 
or  a  mere  battle  to  be  won,  he  never  made  a 
serious  mistake  till  the  final  one,  the  commonest 
of  all,  which  no  one  had  more  excuse  for  making 
than  he.  But  the  excuse  was  of  no  avail.  The 
world  is  never  fond  of  people  who  fancy  it  cannot 
do  without  them  ;  and  the  letter  from  Windsor 
Castle,  like  similar  documents  before  and  since, 
found  no  more  agreeable  answer  than  that 
ancient  but  chilling  maxim,  "  il  n'y  a  pas 
d'homme  necessaire."  There  is  always  a 
Goschen  somehow  on  these  occasions,  and  it 
does  not  do  to  forget  him. 

But  a  biography  is,  after  all,  more  as  well  as 
less  than  a  history  ;  its  business  is  not  merely  to 
relate  events  but  to  paint  a  portrait — what  sort 
of  portrait  of  Lord  Randolph  is  it  that  this  book 
ultimately  leaves  on  the  memory  ?  In  some 
respects,  that  of  a  more  complex  personality  than 
has  generally  been  believed.  Who  would  have 
suspected,  for  instance,  that  Lord  Randolph,  in 
his  speeches  the  rudest  man,  perhaps,  who  ever 
sat  on  the  front  bench,  had  in  private  "  an  old- 
world  courtesy  of  manner  "  that  astonished  the 
Treasury  and  made  Mr.  Gladstone  call  him 
"  the  most  courtly  man  I  ever  met "  ?  Or, 


158     LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

again,  what  could  surprise  most  people  more 
than  to  find  Lord  Randolph  writing  to  Miss 
Jerome  shortly  before  their  marriage  : — 

I  strongly  recommend  you  to  read  some  great 
works  and  histories ;  .  .  .  novels,  or  even  travels,  are 
rather  unsatisfactory  and  do  one  no  good,  because 
they  create  an  unhealthy  excitement  which  is  bad 
for  any  one. 

and,  in  the  same  letter — 

I  have  two  old  favourites.  When  I  feel  very 
cross  and  angry  I  read  Gibbon  whose  profound 
philosophy  and  easy  though  majestic  writing  soon 
quiets  me  down,  and  in  an  hour  I  feel  at  peace  with 
all  the  world.  When  I  feel  very  low  and  desponding 
I  read  Horace,  whose  thorough  epicureanism,  quiet 
maxims,  and  beautiful  verse  are  most  tranquillising. 
Of  late  I  have  had  frequent  recourse  to  my  two 
friends,  and  they  have  never  failed  me. 

It  may  be  noted,  too,  that  he  quoted  Non  ebur 
neque  aureum  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  1884 
at  the  expense  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Smith,  whose 
"  brilliant,  ingenious,  and  fertile  mind "  had 
invented  the  argument  that  Irishmen  who  lived 
in  mud  cabins  were  not  fit  to  vote.  His  son 
tells  us  that  in  his  early  days  he  knew  three  books 
almost  by  heart — the  Bible,  Gibbon,  and 
"  Jorrocks."  The  "  resignation  "  chapter  in 
this  book  is  headed  by  a  passage  from  Dryden 
which  Mr.  Churchill  found  copied  out  in  his 
father's  hand  ;  those  fine  lines  which  end,  "  But 
what  has  been  has  been,  and  I  have  had  my 
hour."  So  that  Lord  Randolph,  too,  was  not 


"DE  L'AUDACE"  159 

altogether  without  the  love  of  letters  traditional 
among  English  statesmen.  But  these  and  other 
indications  of  the  conventional  English  gentle- 
man of  culture  are  only  the  details  of  the  portrait. 
The  broad  impression  is  still  that  of  the  astonish- 
ing young  man  of  whom  no  one  could  say 
whether  his  impudence  was  greater  than  his 
ability,  or  his  ability  greater  than  his  impudence. 
"  De  1'audace  et  toujours  de  1'audace "  was 
always  his  motto  ;  and  his  life  is  a  series  of 
defiances  beginning  with  schoolmasters  at  Eton, 
police  magistrates  at  Oxford,  and  masters  of 
hounds  in  the  hunting  field,  and  proceeding 
quite  naturally  to  the  magnates  of  his  party  and 
the  House.  Even  in  his  marriage  he  was  as 
rapid  and  audacious  as  in  everything  else.  He 
proposed  to  Miss  Jerome  on  the  third  night  of 
their  acquaintance,  and  when  his  father  delayed 
the  marriage  by  "  unnecessary  rigmarole  and 
verbosity,"  was  only  prevented  by  a  timely 
surrender  from  a  jnost  vigorous  scheme  of 
reprisals  to  be  carried  out  through  the  medium 
of  the  borough  of  Woodstock.  Everywhere  and 
in  everything  he  is  a  person  who  makes  things 
livelier  by  his  entrance  into  a  room.  Public  life 
does  not  contain  too  many  people  who  enliven 
the  course  of  official  routine  as  he  did,  by  such 
questions  as  the  "  Was  I  a  bimetallist  when  I  was 
at  the  India  Office  ?  "  with  which  he  startled 
Sir  Arthur  Godley  ;  or  that  other,  "  Are  the 
consumers  represented  upon  this  deputation  ?  " 
which  he  put  with  crushing  gravity  to  a  deputation 
of  sugar  refiners. 


160     LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

That  was  the  man.  The  statesman  is,  perhaps, 
less  easy  to  be  sure  about.  Two  things,  however, 
are  brought  out  pretty  clearly  in  this  book,  his 
essential  consistency  and  his  loyalty  to  his  party. 
Towards  his  friends  and  colleagues,  indeed,  he 
seems  to  have  been  deficient  in  the  kind  of 
loyalty  which  alone  makes  political  co-operation 
possible.  Sir  John  Gorst  and  Mr.  Jennings, 
after  the  closest  political  alliance  with  him, 
conceived  themselves  so  badly  treated  by  him 
that  they  broke  off  all  correspondence  and  never 
resumed  it.  Mr.  Chamberlain  felt  so  injured 
by  his  conduct  at  one  time  that  he  wrote  to  him 
in  the  third  person.  Lord  Salisbury,  after  a 
brief  intimacy  during  which  he  wrote  Lord  Ran- 
dolph no  letters  in  seven  months,  accepted  his 
resignation  without  reluctance  and  never  desired 
his  return.  The  truth  is  that  Lord  Randolph 
was  too  wilful,  too  arbitrary,  too  masterful,  to 
act  for  long  with  men  who  would  not  be  his 
puppets.  That  would  not  so  much  have  mattered 
if  he  had  had  it  in  him  to  follow  the  wise  advice 
Mr.  Labouchere  gave  him  at  the  time  of  his 
resignation — "  Sacrifice  everything  to  becoming 
a  fetish  ;  then,  and  only  then,  you  can  do  as  you 
like."  But  patience,  the  first  necessity  of  an 
English  statesman,  was  a  quality  of  which  he 
knew  nothing  ;  and  his  imperious  impatience 
was  his  ruin.  Still,  this  incapacity  for  getting 
on  with  men  involved  no  disloyalty  to  principle. 
Few,  indeed,  are  the  prominent  statesmen  who 
have  so  few  inconsistencies  in  their  record.  The 
best  service  Mr.  Churchill  has  done  his  father's 


HIS  FALSE  POSITION  161 

memory  is  the  conclusive  proof  he  gives  that  his 
extremely  generous  views  about  Ireland,  so 
often  supposed  to  have  been  taken  up  with  an 
eye  to  Parnell's  support,  date  from  his  first 
residence  in  Ireland  during  his  father's  Vice- 
royalty.  And  the  Liberal  opinions  which  he 
found  to  be  so  distasteful  to  the  "  rampant  and 
irrepressible  Toryism "  of  Lord  Salisbury's 
Cabinet  were  profoundly  sincere.  But  the 
question,  which,  perhaps,  he  never  sufficiently 
asked  himself,  is  whether  a  man  who  believed  in 
local  option  and  one  man  one  vote,  who  "  re- 
garded Liberal  measures  as  things  good  and 
desirable  in  themselves,"  and  who  could  say 
even  in  joke  that  he  cared  more  for  the  Eight 
Hours  Bill  than  for  Monarchy,  Church,  or 
House  of  Lords,  had  any  business  in  the  Conser- 
vative party  at  all  ?  He  was  loyal  in  action,  as 
his  conduct  from  1887  to  his  death,  with  its 
many  resistances  to  temptation  and  its  few 
surrenders,  shows  ;  but  could  he  possibly  be 
loyal  in  thought  ? 

That  was  perhaps  the  unhealthiest  side  of  his 
influence  on  politics — that,  and  the  vulgar 
licence  of  personal  abuse  he  always  practised, 
which  did  more  than  has  been  done  by  any  one 
else  to  lower  the  dignity  and  amenity  of  English 
public  life.  A  statesman  of  the  highest  order 
he  certainly  was  not.  In  political  faith  and 
courage,  the  spring  of  all  great  achievement,  he 
almost  equalled  Gladstone  and  Disraeli,  and  he 
surpassed  Lord  Salisbury  and  Mr.  Balfour ; 
but  he  had  nothing  of  Lord  Salisbury's  large 


162     LORD  RANDOLPH  CHURCHILL 

wisdom,  and  nothing  of  Mr.  Balfour's  intellectual 
fertility.  Most  of  all,  perhaps,  he  was  wanting 
in  the  higher  qualities  of  the  imagination.  He 
lived  entirely  on  the  earth,  in  the  street,  one  might 
say,  with  his  eyes  on  the  polling  booth,  and  his 
hopes  on  the  next  general  election.  He  could 
never  touch  the  national  imagination  on  the 
moral  side  as  Gladstone  could,  making  voters 
and  politicians  feel  the  issue  of  the  moment  as 
part  of  the  eternal  duel  between  the  spirit  of 
evil  and  the  spirit  of  good  ;  nor  on  the  historical 
side  as,  at  his  best,  Disraeli  could,  making  a 
public  meeting  a  place  in  which  the  very  air 
seemed  full  of  august  memories.  Such  things 
were  not  in  him  to  do.  But  what  he  could  do 
he  did.  And  the  man  who  in  four  years  com- 
pletely transformed  a  great  party,  and  prepared 
it  for  twenty  years  of  power,  will  not  be  forgotten 
so  long  as  English  parties  exist  and  English 
political  history  is  read. 


IX 
OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST* 

WHAT  is  an  optimist  ?  We  know  what  a  pes- 
simist is.  At  least  we  know  that  entertaining 
definition  which  has  truth  as  well  as  wit  in  it : 
"  What  is  a  pessimist  ?  Why,  a  man  who  lives 
with  an  optimist."  It  is  a  sort  of  new  reading 
of  the  ancient  optimi  corruptio  pessima.  And 
probably  its  reverse  is  also  true  ;  an  optimist  is 
a  man  who  lives  with  a  pessimist.  But  in  both 
cases  the  truth  involved  is  the  smaller  part  of  the 
whole  ;  we  are  not  so  unhappily  made  that  the 
main  influence  of  our  friends  and  neighbours 
is  that  of  provoking  a  reaction.  All  of  us,  in  so 
far  as  we  are  really  human,  feel  a  desire  of  agree- 
ment with  those  about  us  ;  a  large  part  of  our 
happiness  consists  in  moral  and  intellectual 
harmony.  We  learn  from  each  other,  every 
hour  get  knowledge,  opinions,  sympathies, 
admirations  from  each  other.  Everybody  has 
watched  the  process  of  a  whole  group  of  people 
being  infected  with  some  enthusiasm  which 
before  existed  only  in  some  one  of  its  members. 
And  of  course  we  catch  other  things  from  our 
friends ;  things  less  good  than  knowledge  or 
enthusiasm.  In  any  case,  it  is  clear,  on  the  whole. 

*   Times  Literary  Supplement,  March  i,  1917. 
163 


164      OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

that  the  epigram  about  the  pessimist  has  the 
amount  of  truth  required  in  epigrams  but  not 
much  more.  If  we  ourselves  are  perverse 
people,  or  if  our  friends  are,  we  act  on  each  other 
as  irritants.  But  in  ordinary  circumstances 
and  in  the  case  of  men  and  women  of  ordinary 
human  sympathies,  the  temper  and  opinions  of 
those  with  whom  we  live  are  forces  not  of 
repulsion  but  of  attraction. 

Nor,  of  course,  could  a  mere  definition  by 
opposites  carry  us  very  far.  Yet  the  question 
is,  especially  at  the  present  time,  interesting 
and  even  important.  Since  August,  1914,  the 
nation  has  been  almost  divided  into  optimists 
and  pessimists.  It  is  often  said  that  the  opti- 
mists have  always  been  wrong.  One  reads  in 
certain  sections  of  the  Press  at  each  successive 
crisis  of  the  war  such  sentences  as,  "  Our 
optimists  are  behaving  as  fatuously  as  usual." 
No  doubt  they  have  often  been  mistaken.  In 
the  autumn  of  1914  the  optimist  of  the  streets 
believed  the  war  would  be  over  by  Christmas. 
And  let  us  be  just  to  the  much-abused  Mr.  de  la 
Rue,  as  somebody  christened  him.  The  man 
in  the  street  was  no  more  wrong  than  some,  at 
any  rate,  of  the  men  in  the  Cabinet  and  of  the 
commanders  in  the  field.  All  the  optimists, 
well  and  ill  informed,  under-estimated  German 
strength  and  over-estimated  Russian.  They 
under-estimated  German  obstinacy  and  German 
indifference  to  the  laws  of  God  and  man  ;  they 
also  under-estimated  the  capacity  of  the  Allies 
to  make  gigantic  and  very  costly  mistakes  in 


MISTAKES   ON   BOTH   SIDES     165 

diplomacy  and  in  military  operations.  The 
ordinary  optimist,  at  any  rate,  had  no  conception 
of  the  difficulties  of  working  a  Grand  Alliance, 
and  could  not  foresee  the  possibility  of  such 
muddles  as  those  which  lost  an  army  in  Gallipoli, 
gave  Bulgaria  to  the  enemy  and  Serbia  to  destruc- 
tion. In  all  these  ways  the  whole  clan  of 
optimists,  obscure  and  distinguished,  were  lured 
into  that  path  of  pleasant  delusions  which  leads 
straight  to  the  pit  of  disappointment.  They  are 
even  at  this  minute  perhaps — no  one  can  be  sure 
beforehand — under-estimating  the  amount  of 
suffering  which  the  rulers  of  Germany  will  see 
their  soldiers  and  people  endure  before  they  will 
consent  to  lower  the  flag  of  their  arrogance  and 
publicly  confess  themselves  to  be  in  the  most 
humiliating  of  all  positions,  that  of  the  beaten 
bully. 

All  this  is  true.  But  what  is  equally  true  and 
much  more  rarely  said  is  that  the  pessimists  have 
certainly  not  been  any  more  infallible  than  the 
optimists.  Who  does  not  remember  the  first 
days  of  September,  1914,  when  every  pessimist 
ridiculed  those  who  still  had  hopes  of  saving 
Paris  ?  A  little  later  they  were  quite  sure  that 
Ypres  would  go,  and  indeed  Calais  and  the 
Channel  coast;  in  1915  they  were  certain  that 
not  only  Riga  but  Petrograd  would  be  occupied, 
and  that,  in  fact,  Russia  was  "  finished  "  ;  when 
Italy  came  in  they  expected  to  see  the  Germans 
in  Milan  and  Venice  within  three  weeks,  and 
last  year  they  again  asserted  that  these  cata- 
strophes were  plainly  on  the  eve  of  taking  place  ; 

M 


i66      OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

they  were  sure  of  the  fall  of  Verdun  ;  sure  that 
we  could  never  deal  with  the  Zeppelins  (one  of 
the  more  prominent  printed  a  prophecy  in  1915 
that  during  the  next  six  weeks  we  must  expect 
Zeppelins  to  come  every  day,  doing  increasing 
damage — a  period  during  which,  as  it  happened, 
not  one  reached  these  shores) ;  sure  that  we 
could  never  make  an  offensive  on  the  West,  sure 
that  the  submarines  would  prove  invincible  or 
so  serious  as  to  force  on  us  an  unsatisfactory 
peace.  These  are  mistakes  at  least  as  serious  as 
those  of  the  optimists,  so  far,  at  any  rate,  as  time 
has  been  able  to  pronounce  upon  them.  Nor 
did  their  military  misjudgments  stand  alone. 
If  optimists  of  high  financial  authority  can  be 
quoted  as  having  declared  that  the  Germans 
would  not  be  able  to  last  out  financially  more 
than  six  months,  expert  pessimists  can  equally 
be  quoted  who  were  not  deterred  by  the  experi- 
ence of  two  years  from  declaring  last  summer 
that  the  rate  of  exchange  could  not  be  maintained 
more  than  a  few  weeks  and  that  a  financial 
collapse  in  the  autumn  was  inevitable.  Let  us 
hope  that  their  patriotism  is  pure  enough  to 
rejoice,  without  any  alloy  of  irritation  at  their 
own  exposure,  in  the  position  as  we  see  it  to-day, 
with  a  steady  exchange  and  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  announcing  a  War  Loan  of  over 
^1,000,000,000  ! 

These  are  all,  both  optimist  and  pessimist, 
miscalculations  of  the  intellect.  But  they  illus- 
trate what  the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth 
century  tried  to  ignore  and  the  newest  philosophy 


EMOTIONS  AND   INTELLECT     167 

of  our  own  day  may  tend  to  exaggerate — the 
interdependence  of  the  intellect  and  the  emotions. 
There  is  very  rarely  such  a  thing  as  a  pure  act 
of  the  mind.  We  see  partly  what  we  are  looking 
for  and  believe  partly  what  we  desire.  In  one 
way,  of  course,  this  leads  to  constant  deceptions. 
If  a  farmer  chooses  to  put  off  harvesting  in 
August  because  he  is  constitutionally  incapable 
of  believing  in  anything  but  a  fine  September,  he 
is  exposed  to  rude  surprises.  But  then  so  he  is 
if  he  cuts  his  corn  before  it  is  really  ripe  because 
he  is  constitutionally  incapable  of  believing  in 
any  but  a  wet  September.  These  are  simply 
intrusions  of  the  temperament  in  the  sphere  of 
the  intellect,  and  have  to  be  paid  for.  Even 
here  the  optimist  has  a  real  advantage.  Both 
are  wrong :  each  feels,  when  September  comes, 
that  he  has  lost  a  good  crop  which  he  might 
have  had  ;  but  the  one  gets  an  August  of  happi- 
ness, which  means  more  life  in  himself  and  more 
friendliness  to  others,  out  of  his  mistake  ;  the 
other  gets  one  of  depression  and  consequent 
ill-temper.  Still  every  one  would  admit  that  in 
this  sphere  the  thing  to  aim  at  is  to  get  the 
emotions  to  stand  aside  and  let  the  intellect  work 
so  accurately  that  we  form  correct  judgments — 
are,  in  fact,  in  touch  with  the  truth. 

But  there  are  many  things,  and  some  of  the 
most  important,  in  which  it  is  a  gain  and  not  a 
loss  that  the  emotions,  if  they  are  of  the  right 
sort,  should  influence  the  judgment.  Our  hopeful- 
ness cannot  affect  the  weather.  But  it  can  and 
every  day  does  affect  the  actions  of  those  about 


1 68       OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

us.  The  power  of  faith — posstmt  quia  posse 
videntur — is  not  only  for  those  who  have  it,  but 
for  those  who  see  it  in  their  friends  or  their 
leaders.  It  creates  what  it  desires.  If  we 
believe  every  man  we  have  to  do  with  to  be  a 
cheat,  a  great  many  will  become  what  we  take 
them  for.  If  we  suspect  our  servants  they  will 
tend  to  deserve  our  suspicions.  But  if  we 
believe  in  goodness  we  not  only  find  it,  we 
make  it.  Every  soldier  can  tell  us  of  the  difference 
between  the  officer  who  believes  in  his  men's 
courage  and  devotion  and  the  officer  who  thinks 
they  will  do  nothing  which  they  are  not  made  to 
do.  Out  of  the  same  material  the  one  will 
create  a  regiment  of  heroes,  the  other  one  of 
malingerers  and  grumblers. 

It  is  in  all  these  greatest  things,  and  notably 
in  the  great  worlds  of  art  and  religion,  that  the 
judgments  of  the  intellect  are  most  necessarily 
and  rightly  affected  by  the  non-intellectual  parts 
of  the  spirit  of  man.  The  mere  intellect,  alone 
and  by  itself,  is  totally  incapable  of  seeing  the 
whole  of  even  the  apparently  plainest  things  in 
these  spheres.  What  it  sees  by  itself  is  a  very 
small  part,  and  the  least  essential,  of  the  true 
whole,  say,  of  a  Rembrandt  etching  or  of  a 
collect  in  the  Prayer-book.  And  so  in  the  matter 
of  human  character.  What  the  external  judg- 
ment sees  in  men  is  that  part  alone  which  depends 
on  the  calculating  intellect,  the  part  which  issues 
in  external  and  measurable  actions.  It  does  not 
see  the  secret,  struggling,  half-conscious  or  sub- 
conscious emotions,  the  inner  rebellions  against 


THE  OPTIMISM  OF  THE  SPIRIT    169 

acquired  habit  and  the  pressure  of  environment ; 
it  is  blind  to  the  immortal  spirit,  which  is  always 
dying  and  being  born  again,  always  seeing 
visions  and  failing  fully  to  grasp  them,  always 
moulding  matter  and  yet  wearying  of  the  struggle 
with  its  resistance,  always  proving  itself  the 
power  behind  the  visible  sphere  of  things,  yet 
never  itself  seen  by  any  eyes  except  those  which 
perceive  the  invisible. 

And  this  is  the  real  difference  between  the 
deeper  sorts  of  optimism  and  pessimism.  It  is 
a  difference  of  the  spirit.  Of  course,  in  this 
sphere,  too,  there  are  matters  in  which  the 
intellect  by  itself  has  a  right  to  play  an  important 
part.  When  other  people  were  expecting  a  war 
of  three  or  four  months  it  was  right  that  Lord 
Kitchener  should  expect  one  of  three  years. 
Probably,  though  not  certainly,  it  would  have 
been  better  for  the  country  if  Mr.  Asquith  had 
expected  the  same.  But  there  is  another  side 
even  to  that.  It  has  been  said  that  many  men 
would  not  consent  to  live  a  day  longer  if  they 
could  foresee  the  misfortunes  which  would  occur 
to  them  within  a  year.  It  is  not  certain — though 
we  may  have  our  private  faith  on  the  subject — 
that  the  nation  would  have  faced  the  future  as 
it  did  in  the  black  autumn  of  1914  if  it  had  known 
how  long  the  blackness  was  to  last  without 
showing  a  streak  of  dawn.  Part  of  the  function 
of  Ministers  was  to  keep  high  the  courage  and 
confidence  of  the  nation  ;  and  it  was  difficult 
to  do  that  unless  they  shared  it  themselves,  even 
perhaps  to  a  degree  beyond  what  the  cold 


170      OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

intellect  allowed.  No  doubt  the  nation  has 
paid  a  heavy  price  for  the  too  easy  hopefulness 
of  Ministers.  But  it  is  fair  to  remember  that 
there  is,  at  any  rate,  a  set-off  against  the  loss. 
The  serene  cheerfulness  of  Mr.  Asquith,  the 
resolute  refusal  of  Viscount  Grey  to  consider  the 
possibility  of  any  end  but  that  of  a  triumphant 
vindication  of  public  right,  were  no  small 
elements  in  the  stock  of  national  determination 
which  has  carried  us  through  these  three  years 
of  supreme  trial.  The  nation  could  not  have 
been  successfully  led  by  Ministers  who  were 
pessimists.  In  this  great  world  of  politics  as  in 
the  small  world  of  private  life  cheerfulness  makes 
for  vitality,  while  the  tendency  to  dwell  on  and 
anticipate  misfortunes  makes  for  depression  and 
weakness.  Which  is  the  better  member  of  a 
family,  one  who  thinks  and  talks  only  of  what 
has  gone  well  with  family  affairs  in  the  past  and 
by  temperament  expects  things  also  to  go  well 
in  the  future,  or  one  who  dwells  only  on  gloom, 
foresees  it  and  gloats  over  it  ?  The  answer  is 
plain.  Both  may  be  equally  far  from  including 
the  whole  truth,  but  the  one  has  the  half  which 
makes  for  life  and  the  other  the  half  which,  by 
itself,  makes  for  death.  By  the  one  the  family 
life  is  cheered  and  strengthened  ;  by  the  other 
its  energy  is  sapped  and  its  courage  destroyed. 

But  the  difference  is  much  profounder  than 
this.  The  reason  why  the  pessimist  is  a  curse 
to  his  country  is  not  because  he  is  often  wrong 
in  his  calculations ;  it  is  not  even  because  he 
depresses  our  spirits  and  lowers  our  power  to 


PESSIMISM  IS  LACK  OF  FAITH    171 

face  out  task  ;  it  is  because  he  believes  neither 
in  God  nor  in  man.  That  may  seem  a  hard 
saying.  But,  so  far  as  he  is  a  pessimist,  it  is  true. 
It  may  not  be  necessary  for  everybody  who 
believes  in  God  to  believe  with  Browning's  Pippa 
that  because  "  God's  in  His  Heaven  "  therefore 
here  and  now  "  all's  right  with  the  world." 
But  it  is  certain  that  such  a  man  will  believe 
that  all  is  at  least  in  process  and  possibility  of 
being  put  right ;  and  that  that  process  has 
begun  now  and  is  constantly  at  work.  A  man 
may  believe  that  in  another  world  all  will  be 
made  right.  But  that  is  really  believing  only  in 
a  future  God.  He  may  live  a  sincerely  good 
life  of  obedience  to  this  future  God  ;  but  that 
seems  to  be  believing  only  in  a  God  who  will 
ultimately  judge,  not  in  One  who  is  now  trans- 
forming and  converting  the  world.  And  no 
isolated  texts  in  the  New  Testament  will  prevent 
the  faith  of  mankind,  and  especially  of  Christen- 
dom, from  believing  more  and  more  that  God  is 
leading  His  world  slowly  but  steadily  upwards, 
and  that  each  generation  or  each  century,  gaining 
on  one  side,  losing  on  another,  does  on  the  whole 
make  a  slowly  mounting  balance  of  progress 
towards  the  life  that  God  meant  man  to  live. 
That  this  faith  is  justified  seems  certain.  In 
matters  of  art,  indeed,  and  of  the  pure  intellect 
progress  is  doubtful  or  invisible,  unless  ten 
mediocrities  are  to  be  held  the  equivalent  of  one 
creative  genius.  But  in  the  sphere  of  morals, 
generally  though  quite  wrongly  supposed  to  be 
the  sole  interest  of  the  Divine  Will,  who  can 


172      OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

doubt  the  progress  of  the  world  ?  To  take  a 
single  small  field  of  morals,  who  can  doubt,  in 
spite  of  the  constant  tirades  against  luxury  and 
selfishness  which  have  been  equally  loud  in  every 
preceding  age,  especially  those  now  exalted  for 
their  supposed  simplicity  of  life,  that  there  were 
in  England  in  1913  at  least  a  hundred  times  as 
many  people  freely  giving  of  their  leisure,  wealth, 
and  education  for  the  service  of  others  as  there 
were  a  century  earlier  ?  Of  course  there  is 
much  culpable  selfishness  to-day,  but  the  more 
important  point  is  that  there  is  less  selfishness 
and  more  public  service  than  ever  before.  So, 
too,  about  the  war  itself.  It  is  not  merely  the 
advance  of  science  ;  it  is  the  increased  strength 
of  the  humane  will  that  makes  the  lot  of  the 
wounded  to-day  so  immeasurably  less  painful 
than  it  was  in  the  wars  of  Marlborough  or 
Wellington.  The  conduct  of  Germany  in 
Belgium  and  elsewhere,  abominable  as  it  seems 
to  us,  and  indeed  is,  is  only  abominable  in 
comparison  with  the  practice  of  the  civilised 
world  for  the  last  few  centuries.  The  lot  of  the 
Belgians  compared  with  that  of  the  victims  of 
Attila  or  Timur — to  say  nothing  of  more  ancient 
conquerors — is  almost  a  fortunate  one.  The 
crime  of  the  Germans  lies  precisely  there.  They 
have  sinned  against  the  light ;  they  have  tried 
to  set  back  the  progress  of  centuries.  The 
surprise  and  indignation  which  they  have  aroused 
is  the  measure  of  the  world's  progress,  and  may 
be  strong  enough  to  prove  in  future  its  safeguard. 
Not  to  believe  in  this  progress,  as  a  moral 


THE  PESSIMIST'S   LIE  173 

certainty,  an  a  priori  act  of  faith,  is  the  pes- 
simist's lie  in  the  soul.  It  is  what  makes  him 
always  so  fatal  a  presence,  each  in  his  own  circle. 
It  is  worst,  and  unfortunately  commonest,  when 
it  arises  from  a  lack  of  any  faith  in  spirit  at  all. 
Many  people  must  have  noticed  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war  all  the  people  who  believed 
in  men  were  optimists,  and  most  of  those  who 
believed  in  machines  were  pessimists.  All  the 
materialists,  all  the  people  who  regard  mechanical 
inventions  as  important  landmarks  in  human 
history,  all  who  think  that  the  progress  of 
humanity  may  be  measured  in  the  scales  that 
deal  with  rapidity  of  movement,  command  over 
sea  and  air,  or  similar  matters,  either  were  or 
tended  to  be  pessimists.  They  were  obsessed 
by  the  amazingly  victorious  march  of  German 
materialism  since  1870,  and,  knowing  nothing 
of  the  spirit  of  man,  they  believed  that  nothing 
could  resist  a  force  so  visible,  tangible,  entirely 
undeniable.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who 
believed,  as  especially  in  Russia,  in  man's  soul, 
or,  as  especially  in  France,  in  his  mind,  or,  as 
especially  in  England,  in  his  character,  stood 
firm  and  undaunted  in  the  worst  days  in  face  of 
all  the  victories  of  Krupp.  They  had  a  faith 
that  there  was  something  greater  and  more 
invincible  in  man  than  was  dreamt  of  in  Krupp 's 
philosophy.  They  were  the  real  optimists  ;  not 
those  who  built  on  a  doubtful  calculation  of  the 
chances  of  battle,  but  those  who  built  on  the 
moral  nature  of  man.  It  is  quite  true  that  in 
history  they  have  not  always  proved  right.  The 


174       OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

death-dealing  passage  of  Timur  over  some  of 
the  fairest  parts  of  the  human  heritage,  the  fatal 
victories  of  the  barbarous  Ottoman  over  Greek, 
Roman,  Arab,  and  Christian  civilisation,  were 
set-backs  to  progress  and  obstacles  to  faith  in  it 
as  great  as,  or  greater  than,  a  victory  of  the  new 
barbarians  would  be.  But  between  the  struggle 
against  old  scourges  of  humanity  and  that  against 
the  enemy  of  to-day  there  is  a  difference  as  well 
as  a  similarity.  The  victory  of  the  new  would 
be  like  the  victory  of  the  old  in  being  one  of 
robbers  and  barbarians  over  a  higher  civilisation. 
The  course  of  the  war  has  proved  to  all  the  world, 
what  acute  observers  had  always  known,  that  the 
Prussian,  in  spite  of  his  organised  and  somewhat 
mechanical  learning,  still  exhibits  the  plainest 
traces  of  the  unfortunate  fact  that  he  has  never 
experienced  either  of  the  two  great  disciplines 
which  are  the  sources  of  European  civilisation. 
No  Roman  rulers  ever  taught  him  the  laws,  the 
manners,  or  the  wisdom  of  the  ancient  world  ; 
and  of  Rome's  later  lesson,  that  of  Christianity, 
he  knew  nothing  till  it  had  lost  much  of  its 
original  vitality  and  become — what  with  him  it 
remains — a  matter  of  politics  rather  than  of 
religion.  His  victory,  then,  would  be  as  fatal 
to  Western  Europe  as  the  victory  of  the  Turk 
was  to  Eastern.  But  there  are  differences  too  ; 
and  the  important  one  is  that  the  barbarian  who 
to-day  desires  to  overrun  the  world  has  not 
found,  and  will  not  find,  what  his  predecessors 
found — a  succession  of  victims  divided  and 
scattered,  without  organisation  or  alliance,  and, 


SPIRIT  AND   MATTER  175 

what  is  far  more  important,  without  virility, 
spirit,  or  faith.  The  defenders  of  the  ancient 
polity  of  Europe  have  proved  themselves  in  no 
way  the  inferiors  of  its  enemy,  except  in  the 
matter  of  preparation  against  a  crime  in  which 
they  could  not  bring  themselves  to  believe.  In 
all  the  higher  human  qualities — in  courage  and 
self-sacrifice,  in  quickness  of  intellect  and  in 
wisdom  and  exaltation  of  spirit,  in  an  unshaken 
union  which  has  resisted  all  disasters  and  all 
temptations,  and  in  unquenchable  faith  in  the 
certainty  of  ultimate  victory — they  have  been, 
in  spite  of  far  greater  difficulties,  not  only  equal 
to  the  Germans,  but  in  most  cases  far  above 
them,  on  an  altogether  higher  plane.  Nothing 
could  be  less  like  the  nations  which  proved  such 
easy  prey  for  Tartars  and  Ottomans  than  this 
Allied  Europe  of  to-day.  In  this  lies  a  reasoned 
justification  for  the  optimist. 

But  it  is  not  his  highest  justification.  That 
lies  elsewhere.  Faith  and  freedom  may  not 
organise  thamselves  for  war  so  easily  as  bureau- 
cratic materialism,  but  they  have  in  them  a 
vitality  of  which  it  knows  nothing.  It  would  be 
false  to  say  that  they  cannot  be  defeated.  They 
have  been  defeated  before  and  may  be  again,  in 
ways  and  for  reasons  inscrutable  to  us  who  live 
in  a  universe,  material  and  moral,  of  which  we 
see  only  the  tiniest  fraction.  But  what  we  do 
see,  what  faith  sees  for  herself  beyond  experience, 
what  freedom  finds  in  her  own  heart,  is  that  they, 
and  such  as  they,  are  powers  of  life  because  they 
are  powers  of  the  spirit ;  and  that  tyranny  and 


176      OPTIMIST  AND  PESSIMIST 

materialism  have  in  them  something  "  akin,"  as 
Wordsworth  said  of  riches, 

To  fear,  to  change,  to  cowardice,  and  death. 

To  deny  that  is  to  deny  the  spirit  itself;  and 
that  is  the  unforgivable  sin  of  the  pessimist.  To 
believe  it  is  the  joy  of  the  optimist  and  his  best 
service  to  his  country. 


X 

THEN  AND   NOW* 

THERE  are  striking  differences  between  the  war 
we  are  now  waging  and  that  of  a  hundred  years 
ago.  This  is  much  more  of  a  war  of  the  whole 
world  than  that  was,  for  one  thing ;  it  can 
scarcely  fail  to  be  very  much  shorter,  for  another. 
And  of  course  there  are  many  other  points  of 
contrast.  But  the  more  one  goes  behind  surface 
characteristics,  the  more  one  looks  into  the  essential 
meaning  of  the  two,  the  more  one  is  struck  not 
with  contrasts  but  with  resemblances.  The 
true  war  aims  for  which  we  continued  that  war 
for  twenty  years  are  exactly  the  same  as  those 
for  which  we  shall,  if  need  be,  continue  this  for 
as  many.  We  fought  then  and  we  fight  now 
primarily  for  the  "  security  "  of  Pitt's  famous 
speech  and  the  "  liberty "  of  Wordsworth's 
great  sonnets.  Post  hoc,  ergo  propter  hoc  is  the 
hardiest  of  all  fallacies,  and  there  are  still  ignorant 
people  who,  because  the  war  ended  in  the  return 
of  Louis  XVIII.,  say  and  write  that  we  fought  it 
to  restore  the  Bourbons.  Of  course  the  truth 
is  that,  as  is  well  known,  Pitt  refused  to  interfere 
with  the  Revolution  so  long  as  it  did  not  inter- 
fere with  us  ;  and  throughout  the  war,  in  spite 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  January  10, 1918. 
177 


178  THEN  AND  NOW 

of  Burke,  nobody  but  a  few  sentimentalists  cared 
a  farthing  about  restoring  the  Bourbons,  whom 
we  had  no  reason  to  love  or  even  respect. 
Louis  XVIII.  was  restored  because  to  the 
French  themselves,  as  well  as  to  the  allied 
Sovereigns  who  had  to  find  a  government  for 
France,  he  seemed  the  least  objectionable  of  the 
few  possible  solutions  of  a  very  difficult  problem. 
And  to  those  most  self-contradictory  of  men, 
the  champions  of  freedom  who  worship  at  the 
shrine  of  Napoleon  and  complain  of  the  Restora- 
tion, one  answer  is  sufficient  and  crushing : 
France  enjoyed  fifty  times  as  much  of  political 
and  personal  liberty  between  1815  and  1825  as 
she  enjoyed  between  1800  and  1815. 

The  truth,  then,  plainly  is  that  in  that  struggle, 
as  in  this,  our  predominant  motives  were  the 
security  of  ourselves  and  of  Europe  against  the 
establishment  of  a  universal  military  despotism, 
and  the  defence  of  that  political  and  national 
liberty  of  which  England  had  been  the  first  to 
set  the  example  on  a  large  scale.  No  doubt  the 
parallel  is  closer  in  the  first  point  than  in  the 
second.  In  that,  indeed,  the  wars  of  Elizabeth 
with  Philip  II.,  of  William  III.  and  Anne  with 
Louis  XIV.,  of  the  English  aristocracy  of  a 
hundred  years  ago  with  Napoleon,  of  the  English 
demoeracy  of  to-day  with  the  German  Emperor, 
are  simply  successive  phases  of  the  same  struggle. 
Much  nonsense  has  been  talked  during  the  last 
three  years  about  the  "  balance  of  power  "  which 
appears  to  be  a  sort  of  political  red  rag  to  certain 
people,  especially  those  who  understand  very 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER       179 

little  about  it.  But  if  every  country  in  Europe 
became  a  pure  democracy  to-morrow,  nay,  if  the 
Society  of  Nations  were  established,  as  all  that 
is  best  among  the  Allies  hopes  it  will  be,  neither 
of  these  things  would  undo  the  truth  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  balance  of  power.  The  essential 
part  of  that  doctrine  is  that  the  whole  of  Europe 
is  unsafe  if  a  single  Power  is  strong  and  aggressive 
enough  to  contemplate  establishing  ascendancy 
over  all  the  rest.  That  is  equally  true  whether 
the  Power  is  Spain,  or  France,  or  Germany. 
And  it  would  be  just  as  true,  or  even  truer,  in  a 
Europe  joined  together  in  a  Society  of  Nations 
as  it  is  in  one  of  absolutely  distinct  States.  A 
Society  of  Nations  of  which  Louis  XIV.  or 
Napoleon  was  a  member  would  obviously  be  a 
mere  scrap  of  paper.  And  so  still  more  would 
one  be  of  which  an  undefeated  and  unregenerate 
Germany  was  a  member.  The  balance  of  power 
does  not  mean  that  every  single  member  of  the 
family  of  Europe  is  to  weigh  exactly  the  same 
number  of  ounces  in  some  nicely  adjusted 
political  scales.  There  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  mean,  as  it  has  sometimes  been  made  to 
mean,  that  what  any  Power  loses  in  one  place  is 
to  be  made  up  to  it  in  another.  The  essential 
part  of  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  family 
solicitor,  mutual  compensation,  exchange  of 
properties  point  of  view  which  played  too  large 
a  part  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  The  vital 
thing  in  it  is  quite  distinct  from  all  that.  It  is 
that  Europe  is  a  family  whose  members  are  of 
unequal  age,  size,  and  importance,  but  have  one 


i8o  THEN  AND  NOW 

interest  in  common,  which  is  that  no  one  of 
them  shall  have  either  the  will  or  the  power  to 
erect  for  himself  a  tyranny  over  the  rest.  That 
is  what  France  twice  tried  to  do,  and  what 
Germany  has  been  trying  to  do  ever  since  1870  : 
what  we  prevented  France  from  doing  and  must 
prevent  Germany  from  doing  if  the  world  is  to 
be  made  ready  for  a  Society  of  Nations. 

The  truth  is  that  a  healthy  balance  of  power 
is  the  first  condition  for  the  establishment  of 
such  a  society.  And  such  a  balance  is  at  this 
moment  threatened  by  Germany,  and  by 
Germany  alone.  The  war  has  brought  great 
inconveniences  and  even  sufferings  to  the  small 
neutral  nations,  and  the  immediate  cause  of 
some  of  this  suffering  is  the  blockade  policy  of 
the  Allies.  But  neither  before  the  war  began 
nor  since  has  any  intelligent  person  in  Scandinavia 
or  Holland,  or  Belgium,  or  Switzerland  had  the 
smallest  fear  of  any  interference  with  the  inde- 
pendence of  his  country  on  the  part  of  France  or 
England.  Exactly  the  opposite,  and  with  very 
good  reason,  was  the  case  with  reference  to 
Germany.  In  Belgium  and  Holland,  in  Denmark 
and  Sweden  and  Norway,  in  Switzerland,  in  the 
Balkans,  many  intelligent  persons  had  their 
fears  of  the  Central  Empires.  They  knew  that 
the  two  Emperors  were  masters  of  by  far  the 
strongest  military  force  in  Europe,  and  that 
many  of  the  most  popular  and  influential  voices 
in  Germany  had  proclaimed  designs  for  the 
future  which  quite  undisguisedly  involved  the 
destruction  of  the  independence  of  all  the 


RUSSIA  181 

smaller  nations,  and  even  threatened  to  reduce 
France  and  England  to  a  position  of  impotence. 
No  one  could  then  or  now  quote  any  influential 
voice  in  France  or  England  which  advocated 
interference  with  any  nation's  independence. 
It  is  true  that  in  Sweden  and  the  Balkans  some 
fears  of  Russia  were  mingled  with  those  of 
Germany.  Dislike  of  the  old  Russia  is  easy 
enough  to  explain ;  fear  less  easy.  For  in  a 
succession  of  wars,  with  France  and  England 
in  1855,  witn  Turkey  twenty  years  later,  and 
more  lately  still  with  Japan,  she  had  shown  that, 
while  too  immense  for  real  defeat,  she  is  too 
clumsy,  too  backward,  too  stupid  for  successful 
aggression.  How  long  did  it  take  her  to  defeat 
so  weak  a  Power  as  Turkey  ?  How  could  any 
Swede  suppose  that  she  could  successfully 
interfere  in  Scandinavia,  any  attack  on  which 
was  certain  to  bring  in  Germany  to  the  support 
of  the  victim,  while  it  was  almost  certain  that 
the  aggressor  would  not  have  the  support  of 
France  ?  Even  in  such  a  case  the  wise  Scandina- 
vian had  more  fear  of  the  German  protector  than 
of  the  Russian  enemy,  if  such  there  should  be. 
But  in  any  case  fear  of  Russia  is  now  a  thing  of 
the  past.  The  madmen  who  have  made  them- 
selves her  masters  have  chosen  to  expunge  their 
country  from  the  list  of  the  Powers  of  Europe, 
and  even  if  sane  men  should  soon  succeed  them 
it  will  take  them  long  to  restore  her  to  her  place. 
They  will  be  only  too  fully  occupied  with  the 
disastrous  legacy  of  almost  insoluble  problems 
bequeathed  to  them  by  the  tyranny,  corruption, 

N 


182  THEN  AND  NOW 

and  incompetence  of  the  old  Russia  and  the 
lawless  insanity  of  the  new.  Russia  then  being 
written  off,  and  America  with  her  disinterested 
idealism  having  come  in,  it  is  plain  that  no  sane 
citizen  of  any  neutral  country  can  have  any  fears 
of  any  danger  whatever  from  the  decisive  victory 
of  the  Allies,  while  he  must  view  with  appre- 
hension and  misgiving  anything  short  of  a  real 
defeat  of  Germany. 

For  these  reasons  we  may  say  with  confidence 
that  now,  as  a  hundred  years  ago,  we  are  fighting 
for  the  security  not  only  of  ourselves  but  of 
Europe.  And  if,  now  as  then,  we  are  fighting  for 
security,  so  now,  even  more  than  then,  we  are 
fighting  for  liberty.  It  is  still  a  parallel,  not  a 
contrast.  Then  as  now  our  cause  was,  as  Words- 
worth knew,  the  cause  of  freedom.  And  that  was 
essentially  true  from  the  first,  in  spite  of  the 
genuine  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  of  liberty  of  the 
young  French  Revolution.  We  did  not  fight  the 
Revolution,  in  spite  of  many  and  very  grave 
provocations,  till,  after  occupying  Belgium,  France 
threatened  Holland  directly  and  ourselves  in- 
directly by  setting  aside  the  very  recent  treaty 
about  the  Scheldt.  We  had  entirely  refused  to 
support  the  German  invasion  of  France  in  the 
supposed  interest  of  Louis  XVI.,  or  to  interfere  in 
any  way  in  the  internal  affairs  of  France.  But  then 
as  now  the  independence  of  the  Low  Countries 
was  a  subject  of  legitimate  British  interest.  Even 
so,  it  was  the  French  and  not  we  who  made 
the  actual  declaration  of  war.  But  no  doubt 
the  firm  language  of  Pitt  in  the  dispatch  of 


PITT   AND   MR.   ASQUITH        183 

December  31,  1792  (language  which  might  have 
been  used  by  Mr.  Asquith  with  hardly  an 
alteration  in  August,  1914,  to  Germany),  made 
war  almost  inevitable  with  a  Power  which  was  not 
only  intoxicated  with  victory,  but  openly  aspiring 
to  impose  on  the  whole  world  a  kind  of  despotism 
of  freedom  in  the  interest  and  under  the  tutelage 
of  France.  These  are  some  of  Pitt's  words  : — 

England  will  never  consent  that  France  shall 
arrogate  the  power  of  annulling  at  her  pleasure  and 
under  the  pretence  of  a  pretended  natural  right  of 
which  she  makes  herself  the  sole  judge,  the  political 
system  of  Europe  established  by  solemn  treaties.  .  .  . 
If  France  is  really  desirous  of  maintaining  peace 
and  friendship  with  England  she  must  show  herself 
disposed  to  renounce  her  views  of  aggression  and 
aggrandizement  and  confine  herself  within  her 
own  territory  without  insulting  other  Governments, 
without  disturbing  their  tranquillity,  and  without 
violating  their  rights. 

This  was  the  language  of  good  sense  and  right ; 
and,  more  than  that,  then  as  now,  it  stated  the 
only  principles  on  which  the  freedom  of  Europe, 
and  especially  of  the  smaller  States,  could  be 
safe.  But  though  this  is  true,  and  though  a  war 
based  on  these  principles  was  in  fact  a  war  for 
freedom  as  well  as  for  right,  yet  this  did  not 
become  clear  at  once.  During  some  years  of 
the  struggle  everything  that  was  most  liberal  in 
Europe  was  French  in  sympathy,  while  we  had, 
as  our  damaging  Allies,  the  old  dynasties 
bolstered  up  by  all  the  forces  of  reaction  and 


184  THEN  AND  NOW 

stupidity.  It  was  not,  as  "  The  Convention  of 
Cintra "  shows  with  immortal  wisdom  and 
eloquence,  till  we  threw  ourselves  whole- 
heartedly into  the  support  of  Spain  and  Portugal 
in  their  struggle  for  freedom  and  nationality 
against  a  foreign  tyrant  that  we  began  to  make 
clear  either  to  ourselves  or  to  others  what  had 
really  been  true  all  along,  that  we  were  righting 
the  cause  of  the  freedom  of  the  peoples  of  Europe 
against  the  threat  of  a  universal  military  despotism 
which  cared  nothing  whatever  either  for  nation- 
ality or  for  freedom. 

We  did  not  gain  more  than  a  part  of  that  high 
object.  Partly  by  our  own  fault,  and  still  more 
by  that  of  our  Allies,  our  victory  did  not  result 
in  more  than  a  very  partial  satisfaction  of  the 
double  ideal  of  nationality  and  freedom.  It  was 
natural  and  right  that  we  should  care  more 
about  security  than  about  either  ;  for  without 
the  "  security "  which  Waterloo  sealed  for 
forty  years  neither  nationality  nor  freedom 
would  have  had  a  chance.  But  if  our  statesmen 
had  cared  more,  and  if  those  of  the  Continent 
had  cared  at  all,  for  nationality  and  freedom, 
more  could  have  been  done  for  both.  As  it  was, 
the  first  was  partially  secured,  and  a  few  founda- 
tions laid  for  the  second.  The  great  gain  was 
that  the  universal  tyranny  and  brigandage  of 
Napoleon  was  swept  away.  Bad  as  the  Govern- 
ments of  Austria,  Prussia,  Spain  might  be,  they 
were  at  least  Austrian,  Prussian,  and  Spanish, 
and  men  so  greatly  prefer  national  government  to 
foreign  that  they  have  generally  been  more 


NATIONALITY  AND   FREEDOM    185 

content  to  be  misgoverned  by  a  native  King  than 
well  governed  by  any  alien  authority.  All  that 
was  pure  gain  even  if  the  motive  of  it  was 
mainly  dynastic  interest  and  only  to  a  small 
extent  national  feeling ;  and  neither  Italy  nor 
Belgium  nor  Poland  could  alter  the  fact  that  the 
political  map  of  Europe  in  1816  represented  the 
feelings  of  its  peoples  much  better  than  it  had 
done  five  years  before.  Little  was  done  directly 
for  freedom  outside  France,  where  a  Parliamentary 
system  under  a  well-meaning  Sovereign  replaced 
the  naked  despotism  of  the  sword  of  Napoleon. 
But  the  France  of  1789  and  even  Napoleon  him- 
self in  his  earlier  phase  had  unloosed  a  spirit  of 
liberty  which  neither  their  own  armies  nor 
Metternich's  spies  and  gaolers  could  destroy. 
And  the  victory  of  the  Allies,  which  gave  so  very 
little  directly  to  that  spirit,  gave  it  everything 
indirectly  by  giving  it  the  two  things  indispensable 
for  its  further  development,  the  two  things  it 
could  never  hope  for  while  Napoleon  reigned — 
the  recognition  of  a  sense  of  nationality  and 
security  from  external  attack. 

To-day  we  have  to  go  farther,  much  farther, 
than  the  men  of  1815  either  could  go  or  had  any 
desire  to  go.  But  first  of  all  we  have  to  win  the 
victory  they  won  without  which  they  could  have 
done  nothing.  We  have  to  go  through  the 
difficulties  and  disappointments  which  they  had 
gone  through.  Once  more,  though  in  a  different 
way — 

the  firm  Russian's  purpose  brave 
Is  bartered  by  a  timorous  slave. 


186  THEN  AND  NOW 

Russia  seems  to  be  failing  us  to-day  as  she 
failed  us  for  a  time  a  hundred  years  ago.  But 
as  despots  disappear  or  change  their  minds,  so 
the  present  rulers  of  Russia  may  give  place  to 
others,  or  may  possibly  even  discover  the  truth 
that  the  Western  Powers  are  the  natural  and 
sincere  friends  of  free  Russia  and  Imperial 
Germany  her  natural  enemy.  Perhaps  they 
may  also  learn  that  democracy  cannot  be  estab- 
lished by  throwing  away  the  two  things  which, 
as  we  have  just  been  seeing,  1815  won  for  it  and 
without  which  it  could  never  have  come  into 
being.  The  people  of  Russia,  it  is  certain,  will 
neither  win  freedom  for  themselves  nor  assist 
in  winning  freedom  for  others  by  exposing 
Russia  to  the  easy  invasion  of  a  foreign  Emperor's 
army  nor  by  substituting  an  empty  and  barren 
internationalism  for  the  true  spirit  of  national 
life,  growth,  and  freedom.  Nor  are  general 
pillage  and  the  repudiation  of  all  engagements, 
domestic  and  foreign,  likely  to  prove  a  foundation 
on  which  anything  very  lasting  can  be  built. 

But  the  failure  of  Russia  leaves  us  with  other 
Allies,  both  sane  and  free,  who  will  not  fail ;  a 
happy  contrast  to  the  position  of  a  hundred 
years  ago,  when  we  were  left  for  some  while 
alone  ;  as  Wordsworth  said, 

The  last  that  dare  to  struggle  with  the  foe. 

Those  Allies  are  all  of  one  mind  with  us,  set  on 
one  high  purpose,  joined  together  in  a  unity  of 
spirit  of  an  order  such  as  never  existed  in  the 
alliances  against  Napoleon.  Our  spirit  is  higher 


SELF-DETERMINATION  187 

because  our  purpose  is  greater.  We  have  not 
merely  inherited  their  partially  conceived  goal 
of  national  integrity  and  independence.  We 
have  carried  it  much  farther.  We  ask  for  a 
reorganization  of  Europe  based  upon  the  true 
principles  of  freedom  and  nationality.  It  seems 
to  be  supposed  in  some  quarters  that  the  principle 
of  self-determination  of  the  peoples  was  invented 
by  the  Russian  Revolution.  On  the  contrary, 
it  has  been  implied  from  the  beginning  in  the 
whole  policy  of  the  Allies,  though  not,  it  must 
be  admitted,  always  maintained  with  absolute 
consistency.  It  is  just  a  year  ago,  and  therefore 
long  before  the  Russian  Revolution,  that  the 
Allies  in  their  reply  to  President  Wilson  defined 
their  object  as 

the  reorganisation  of  Europe  guaranteed  by  a  stable 
regime  and  based  at  once  on  respect  for  nationalities 
and  on  the  right  to  full  security  and  liberty  of  economic 
development  possessed  by  all  peoples,  small  and 
great. 

This,  especially  coupled  with  the  illustrations 
which  immediately  follow,  implies  the  whole 
doctrine  of  nationality  and  self-determination. 
But  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  now  cut  away  all  possibility  of  misunder- 
standing between  ourselves  and  the  honest 
idealism  of  Russia  by  declaring  that  we  accept 
the  principle  of  self-determination  absolutely  and 
immediately  as  to  Europe  (in  proof  of  which  we 
may  cite  our  action  at  this  moment  in  Ireland), 
and  that  we  recognise  it,  as  our  public  actions  in 


1 88  THEN  AND  NOW 

recent  years  show,  as  the  goal  which  we  aim  at 
attaining  in  Asia  and  even  in  the  Mahomedan 
and  more  advanced  parts  of  Africa.  Of  course 
this  could  only  be  done  in  agreement  with  our 
Allies  ;  but  if  they  consented  the  joint  declaration 
would  be  at  once  a  challenge  to  which  the  despotic 
Empires  could  give  no  reply  and  the  charter  of  a 
new  world  to  be  constituted  after  our  victory. 

That  victory  is  not  yet  achieved.  We  have 
to  render  William  II.  as  harmless  as  Napoleon  ; 
we  have  to  convince  Germany  as  we  convinced 
France  that  Europe  is  not  one  despotism,  but 
many  free  States.  The  condition  of  that  is 
nothing  less  than  victory.  Now  as  then,  victory 
is  the  only  pledge  of  freedom  or  of  nationality 
or  of  peace.  Professor  Firth,  in  his  admirable 
Creighton  Lecture  ("  Then  and  Now  "  ;  Mac- 
millan,  is.)t  reinforces  with  his  great  authority 
much  of  what  has  been  said  here.  In  particular 
his  last  words  insist  on  this  need  of  enduring  till 
the  goal  of  victory  has  been  attained.  The  men 
of  a  hundred  years  ago,  he  says — 

were  tried  by  fiercer  extremes  of  good  and  evil 
fortune  than  we  have  known,  the  burdens  and 
perils  we  have  borne  for  three  years  they  endured 
for  seven  times  as  many,  and  did  not  lay  down  their 
arms  till  they  had  attained  the  ends  they  fought 
for.  Here  it  will  be  enough  for  us  to  equal  them. 

Will  the  democracy  fail  to  fight  its  own  battle 
as  perseveringly  as  the  aristocracy  fought  what 
was  partly  the  same  battle  a  hundred  years  ago  ? 
If  it  does  so  fail  the  cause  of  European  freedom 


THE   CROAKERS  189 

will  probably  be  lost  for  several  generations,  for 
without  England,  now  as  then,  it  cannot  be  saved. 
And  for  that  failure  the  English  democracy  will 
have  no  excuse.  Its  sufferings  to-day,  the 
sufferings  of  those  who  remain  at  home,  are  as 
nothing  compared  with  those  of  the  men  of  1810, 
who  were  tortured  at  once  by  unemployment, 
high  taxation,  and  something  like  famine.  To- 
day, as  the  Prime  Minister  has  said,  there  is  less 
starvation  in  England  than  there  was  before  the 
war,  there  is  an  unprecedented  abundance  of  very 
highly  paid  employment,  and  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  war  taxation  is  borne  by  the  well-to-do 
classes.  But  for  better  reasons  than  these,  for 
Wordsworth's  reasons,  we  will  not  believe  that 
the  people  of  England  will  faint  or  fail. 

"  All  the  croakers  are  in  England,"  wrote  a 
soldier  in  the  Peninsula  to  his  mother  in  1812. 
That  is  true  still  But  it  is  not  true  that  all  in 
England  are  croakers.  Still,  there  are  too  many 
of  them,  and  they  are  the  danger  of  the  moment. 
Curiously  enough,  Mr.  Firth  quotes  Sydney 
Smith,  a  Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  as  one  of  the  worst. 
He  was  quite  sure  in  1807  that  success  in  the  war 
was  impossible  ;  that  our  blockade  was  useless, 
and  invasion  both  likely  to  come  and  sure  to  be 
successful.  And  he  felt  no  shame  in  publish- 
ing these  opinions.  Another  wiseacre,  Francis 
Horner,  who  also  has  his  successors  to-day, 
thought  that  an  army  at  home  such  as  the 
Government  desired  to  raise  "  would  only  be  a 
less  evil  than  conquest  by  a  foreign  invader  !  " 
Moreover,  there  were  then  traitors  in  high 


190  THEN  AND  NOW 

places,  very  different  from  our  petty  and  obscure 
practisers  in  treason,  men  who  actually  and 
openly  desired  the  success  of  the  enemy,  even  so 
late  as  1813,  as  the  Granville  memoirs  show. 
The  spirit  of  England  was  besieged,  as  Mr.  Firth 
says,  by  "  armies  of  Doubters,  Doubters  of  every 
breed."  But  the  fortress  was  not  taken  then,  and  it 
will  not  be  taken  now.  But  if  it  is  to  be  safe  it 
must  resolutely  refuse  all  parleying  with  the  enemy 
which  involves  any  lowering  of  its  flag.  No 
good  came  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens  in  1802,  and 
no  good  will  come  now  of  any  peace  which 
leaves  Germany  undefeated,  unrepentant,  and 
still  in  the  hands  of  those  whose  policy  of  insolence 
and  violence  stands  confessed  to  the  whole 
world.  Happily  v/3/o«c  usually  refuses  the  most 
tempting  opportunities  of  escaping  its  doom. 
But  we  must  not  rely  upon  the  Germans  being 
as  arrogantly  blind  to  their  own  interests  as 
Napoleon  showed  himself  in  the  winter  of 
1813-14  during  the  foolish  negotiations  of 
Frankfort  and  Chatillon.  We  must  go  through 
to  the  end  and  insist  even  more  firmly  on  our 
higher  and  larger  principles  than  the  men  of 
1814  did  on  their  primary  needs  of  security  and 
independence.  So,  and  so  only,  acting  definitely 
on  principle,  declining  any  huckstering,  insisting 
on  a  peace  of  right,  no  more  and  no  less,  shall  we 
rise  to  the  height  of  the  ultimate  call  made 
upon  us. 

It  is  true  that  even  while  we  use  such  words, 
even  while  we  pledge  ourselves  to  respond  to 
the  full  call,  every  thinking  man  among  us  is 


FAITH  191 

conscious  of  the  tremendous  difficulties  which 
lie  ahead — difficulties  which  appear  impossi- 
bilities in  the  eyes  of  many  who  are  certainly  not 
fools  and  have  not  commonly  been  thought  of  as 
cowards  :  he  is  conscious,  too,  that  he  is  using 
words  too  high  for  him,  words  which,  like  all  the 
best  used  by  religion,  like  the  language  put  into 
our  mouths  by  the  Prayer-book,  are  altogether 
above  his  habitual  self  and  to  which  he  will 
certainly  not  be  always  able  to  keep  faithful. 
But,  here  as  elsewhere,  it  is  best  not  to  be  afraid 
of  thoughts  that  are  too  great  for  us.  Above  all, 
in  matters  of  the  will  the  conquering  words  are 
such  as  possunt  quia  posse  videntur,  credo  quia 
impossibile.  Faith  may  fail,  as  Peter's  did,  but 
none  the  less,  Peter  was  the  better,  not  the 
worse,  for  having  made  his  great  profession. 
And  so,  even  if  we  shrink  back,  as  he  did, 
and  as  each  of  us  only  too  probably  will,  before 
some  sacrifice  that  seems  too  hard  to  bear,  we 
shall  still  be  the  better  for  having  seen  the  vision 
and  embraced  it,  and  shall  be  the  more  likely 
to  recover  from  the  fall. 


XI 
POLITICAL  PROPHECIES* 

ARISTOTLE  said  that  the  life  of  contemplation  was 
higher  and  more  desirable  than  the  life  of  action. 
But  he  has  had  few  English  disciples.  Give  an 
English  student  the  chance  of  becoming  a  Civil 
servant,  the  chairman  of  a  company,  or  even  the 
chairman  of  a  committee,  and,  as  Mark  Pattison 
said  in  another  connexion,  he  eagerly  "  issues  at 
dawn  from  his  chamber  and  his  books."  And  if 
you  give  him  the  chance  of  becoming  a  Cabinet 
Minister  he  naturally  issues  from  them  at  cock- 
crow. Mr.  Fisher  was  a  historian.  He  gave  us 
several  admirable  volumes  and  at  least  one  that 
was  brilliant  and  delightful.  He  never  gave  us 
the  great  work  which  readers  of  history  were 
hoping  to  get  from  him.  But  he  was  compara- 
tively young,  and  if  time  was  going  on,  so,  no 
doubt,  were  his  accumulations  and  preparations. 
And  then  the  whirlpool  caught  him  and  sucked 
him  in.  First  the  administration  of  a  young 
university,  a  more  complicated  and  exacting 
occupation  than  the  chairmanship  of  a  great 
railway  ;  and  then  a  great  Office  of  State,  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  all  that  they  involve  of 
serious  and  absorbing  work  and,  alas !  also  of 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  March  6,  1919. 
192 


LOST  HISTORIANS  193 

idle  functions  and  the  hearing  and  making  of 
unnecessary  speeches.  Clearly  there  is  no  more 
historical  hope  now  of  Mr.  Fisher  than  there 
was  of  Stubbs  and  Creighton  after  they  became 
Bishops  ;  and  Clio  has  to  weep  over  another  lost 
disciple.  But  perhaps  his  case  is  not  quite  so 
bad  as  theirs.  For  the  Church  never  surrenders 
its  prey  except  to  death  or  dotage  ;  while  Sir 
George  Trevelyan  is  one  of  several  examples 
which  show  that  the  State  is  not  always  so 
tenacious  or  perhaps  so  faithful. 

Meanwhile  this  little  pamphlet,*  a  mere  lecture, 
shows  us  something  of  what  we  have  lost.  It  is 
typically  English  :  a  house  of  many  windows 
looking  in  all  directions  and  commanding  pleasant 
prospects.  There  is  no  pedantry,  no  sign  of 
specialism,  no  confinement  to  a  period.  It 
covers  a  wide  country ;  touches  on  Greek, 
Latin,  French,  American  history  as  easily  as  on 
English,  and  exhibits  the  English  characteristic 
of  an  obvious  interest  in  ethics  and  practice. 
The  influence  of  Oxford  may  be  seen  in  the  fact 
that  the  learning  is  always  harnessed  to  the 
service  of  ideas,  and  perhaps  the  influence  of 
Paris,  whither  Mr.  Fisher  proceeded  after 
Oxford,  in  the  lucidity  with  which  both  learning 
and  ideas  are  presented. 

What  does  it  all  come  to  ?  Mr.  George 
Trevelyan,  in  his  "  Clio,"  says,  broadly,  "  History 

*  "  Political  Prophecies  :  An  Address  to  the  Edinburgh 
Philosophical  Society  delivered  November  5,  1918,  by 
the  Right  Hon.  H.  A.  L.  Fisher,  MJ?."  (Clarendon 
Press.  15.  net.) 


194         POLITICAL  PROPHECIES 

cannot  prophesy  the  future."  What  it  can  do, 
he  adds,  is  a  thing  at  once  less  and  greater  than 
this.  "  It  can  mould  the  mind  itself  into  the 
capability  of  understanding  great  affairs  and 
sympathising  with  other  men."  This  widening 
of  sympathy,  of  course,  makes  a  man  a  better,  a 
somewhat  less  fallible,  judge  of  the  affairs  of  his 
own  day,  many  of  which  must  be  to  every  man, 
alien,  dark  and  difficult,  till  he  has  made  one  of 
those  journeys  outside  himself  which  are  among 
the  best  results  of  intelligent  reading.  Even  so 
the  benefit  is  not  direct,  not  a  thing  which  can 
be  measured  and  defined.  What  is  gained  from 
reading  history  is  not  a  science  or  even  an  art 
that  can  be  applied  to  practice  as  you  may  use 
arithmetic  to  make  up  your  accounts,  or  play  the 
piano  as  soon  as  you  have  been  taught.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Trevelyan  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  history 
"  has  no  practical  utility."  But  what  he  probably 
means  is  that  its  use,  like  that  of  art,  poetry  and 
religion,  is  one  that  cannot  be  separated  from 
its  experience.  It  is  not  like  the  discovery  of 
the  electric  light  or  the  telephone,  which,  once 
worked  out  by  a  man  of  science,  can  be  used  by 
anybody.  History,  like  poetry,  possesses  a  man 
rather  than  is  possessed  by  him ;  what  he  gains 
by  it  is  not  a  handy  key  to  contemporary  politics, 
nor  any  pocket  possession  of  any  kind,  but  an 
enlarged  mind  and  a  quickened  imagination. 
The  change  that  follows  from  it  is  a  change  not 
in  what  he  has  got,  but  in  what  he  is. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  why  so  very  few  of 
the  host  of  successful  and  unsuccessful  prophets 


THE   RISKS   OF   PROPHECY       195 

brought  before  us  by  Mr.  Fisher's  omniscience 
are  historians.  Never  prophesy  unless  you  know, 
was  a  cynic's  warning.  But  it  may  be  that  an 
historian  would  complete  it  by  "  and  if  you  know 
you'll  never  wish  to."  That  is,  when  once  you 
have  realised  how  infinitely  complicated  human 
affairs  are,  how  entirely  dependent  upon  the 
most  varied  and  incalculable  of  all  forces,  human 
nature,  you  will  know  that  prophecy  is  too  risky 
a  business  to  enter  upon.  Mr.  Fisher,  who  is 
an  optimist,  is  inclined  to  encourage  the  prophets 
as  well  as  other  people.  He  says  that  the 
machinery  which  they  work  with  has  been  vastly 
improved  since  the  French  Revolution.  He 
notes  with  just  complacency  the  improvement  of 
our  statistics,  our  increased  knowledge  of  birth 
rates,  trade  figures  and  the  like ;  and  our 
capacity  to  estimate  with  tolerable  accuracy  the 
probable  duration  of  the  mines  which  play  such 
an  important  part  in  the  life  of  modern  states. 
Whether,  as  he  adds,  "  the  influence  of  the 
public  press  and  democratic  institutions  have 
given  us  a  more  perfected  and  better  schooled 
habit  of  political  calculation  "  is  less  certain. 
And  in  any  case  how  far  do  these  new  factors 
carry  the  political  prophet  ?  After  all,  the  last 
word  is  always  with  man  himself,  not  with  coal 
mines  or  harbours  or  fertile  soils.  Why  is 
Glasgow,  why  still  more  are  Liverpool  and 
Bristol  great  ports  while  Cork  and  Limerick  are 
very  small  ones  ?  Because  of  some  calculable 
causes  no  doubt,  but  most  of  all  because  of  the 
incalculable  differences  between  the  races  which 


196         POLITICAL  PROPHECIES 

inhabit  the  two  islands.  Why  is  Spain  a  poor 
country  ?  Not  because  it  lacks  minerals  or 
other  natural  advantages,  but  because  the 
Spaniards  are  the  Spaniards.  Why  has  Asia 
Minor,  once  the  flowering  home  of  all  the 
famour  cities  sung  by  Catullus  and  visited  by 
St.  Paul,  been  for  many  centuries  a  desert  of 
poverty  ?  Because  the  Turks  are  neither  rich 
in  themselves  nor  the  cause  of  riches  in  other 
men.  But  till  you  knew  the  Turk  you  could  not 
prophesy  the  misery  of  his  dominions ;  and 
though  it  is  probably  safe  to  bet  against  the 
Turk's  improvement,  it  would  even  now  be  rash 
to  make  sure  that  the  Spaniard  and  the  Irishman 
are  incapable  of  achieving  political  intelligence 
or  economic  success.  So  dark  and  difficult  are 
the  paths  of  the  prophet. 

Yet  they  might  be  primrose  paths  to  judge  by 
the  number  of  those  whom  Mr.  Fisher  shows 
us  walking  in  them.  They  are  a  distinguished 
company,  the  unsuccessful  as  well  as  the  success- 
ful. First  of  all  there  are  those  who  failed  to 
prophesy  when  they  seem  to  us  to  have  had  every 
opportunity.  Aristotle,  who  lived  with  Alexander 
and  yet  never  divined  the  coming  of  the  Nation 
State ;  Franklin,  Frederick  the  Great,  and 
Madame  Roland,  who  had  so  much  interest  in 
foreseeing  the  French  Revolution  and  such 
opportunities  for  doing  so  and  yet  foresaw 
nothing  ;  the  German  General  Staff,  and  indeed, 
all  the  soldiers  of  all  nations,  who  left  it  to  a 
Polish  banker  to  divine  that  the  great  war  when 
it  came  would  be  a  war  of  trenches.  Then  there 


PROPHETS  GOOD  AND  BAD       197 

are  those  who  did  prophesy  and  whose  shades 
must  wish  they  had  not ;  Rousseau,  Joseph  II., 
Catherine  II.  and  Frederick  the  Great,  who  all 
declared  that  England's  day  of  greatness  was 
passed  for  ever ;  Lord  Morley,  who,  happily 
being  without  a  shade  as  yet,  must  do  his  own 
business  of  regretting  his  declaration  that 
Australians  would  never  be  reconciled  to  paying 
for  a  war  undertaken  for  the  defence  of  Belgian 
neutrality  ;  two  Prime  Ministers  and  an  editor 
of  The  Times — Palmerston,  Disraeli  and  Delane 
— who  were  all  quite  sure  the  French  would 
beat  the  Germans  ;  and  a  third,  Lord  Salisbury, 
who  in  1860  was  quite  certain  that  Germany 
would  never  be  united.  Then  there  are  the 
successful  prophets.  It  may  be  noted  that  all 
are  men  of  letters,  only  one  a  politician,  while 
only  two  are  professed  historians  and  their 
prophecies  are  the  least  remarkable  of  all.  They 
are  Polybius,  who  prophesied  that  luxury  and 
success  would  ultimately  destroy  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  Hume,  who  told  Gibbon  that  the 
English  language  would  soon  provide  a  larger 
public  than  the  French.  Then  there  is  Heine, 
who  warned  the  French  that  the  old  heathen 
gods  of  Germany  would  one  day  rise  from  their 
graves  to  the  discomfort  of  Christianity  and 
civilisation.  A  higher  level  is  reached,  perhaps, 
by  Renan,  who  foresaw  that  England  would 
soon  be  France's  ally  against  Germany  ;  certainly 
by  Montesquieu,  who  prophesied  the  revolt  of 
the  American  colonies,  and  still  more  by  Words- 
worth, who  saw  from  the  first  the  doom  of 

o 


198         POLITICAL  PROPHECIES 

French  Imperialism  in  the  national  uprising  oi 
Spain.  The  highest  level  of  all  is  of  course 
reached  by  Burke,  who  saw  that  the  French 
Revolution  was  an  armed  doctrine  and  could 
not  be  confined  to  France,  but  unless  defeated 
must  spread  all  over  Europe  ;  who  foresaw  the 
effect  of  the  civil  constitution  of  the  clergy 
and  prophesied  the  military  despotism  of 
Napoleon. 

We  are  again  living  in  an  hour  which  sees  the 
floodgates  laid  open.  And  naturally  the  prophets 
have  not  been  able  to  resist  temptation.  When 
the  Bolshevists  made  their  revolution,  good 
judges  gave  them  a  few  days,  some  a  few  weeks, 
some  a  few  months.  They  have  already  lasted 
over  a  year  and  a  quarter.  Last  November,  a 
few  days  before  the  German  Revolution,  there 
appeared  in  one  of  our  best  reviews  an  article 
by  a  high  authority  declaring  that  the  German 
sovereigns  were  perfectly  safe  on  their  thrones. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  freely  predicted 
for  the  last  two  years  that  the  General  Elections 
of  all  countries  when  they  came  would  result  in 
sweeping  victories  for  the  Extremists  of  the  Left. 
Elections  have  now  been  held  in  Spain,  Norway, 
the  United  States,  England  and  Germany  ;  and 
the  one  common  feature  which  they  exhibit  is 
the  defeat  of  extreme  socialist  or  revolutionary 
candidates.  So  we  have  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
not  content  to  confine  himself  to  wise  warnings 
about  the  importance  of  quality  in  additions  to 
the  birth  rate,  but  rashly  hurrying  on,  undeterred 
by  the  fate  of  Malthus,  to  declare  that  every  baby 


HISTORY   DOES  NOT  RECUR      199 

born  can  only  make  a  place  for  itself  by  extin- 
guishing another,  and  to  assume  that  the  world's 
supplies  of  food  and  other  commodities  have 
reached  their  final  level ;  as  if  the  increased  rate 
of  production  during  the  last  hundred  years  had 
not  again  and  again  shown  itself  capable  of 
utterly  outdistancing  population  and  reducing 
Malthus  and  the  Malthusians  to  confusion.  For 
such  revivals  of  refuted  prophecy  there  seems 
no  excuse.  More  easily  excused  is  the  prophecy, 
so  commonly  made  to-day,  that  Germany  is 
now  having  her  Kerensky  and  will  presently 
have  her  Lenin  and  Trotsky.  But  this  seems 
to  be  the  sort  of  mistake  which  always  comes  of 
fancying  that  history  repeats  itself.  In  England 
there  was  a  Parliamentary  revolution,  a  military 
despotism,  a  Restoration,  an  abdication,  and  a 
re-settlement  of  the  Monarchy  in  a  younger 
branch  of  the  Royal  family  on  a  liberal  and 
constitutional  basis.  So  in  France  there  were 
the  Estates  General  and  the  various  Parlia- 
mentary forms  of  Government  that  filled  the 
first  years  of  the  Revolution  ;  then  Napoleon  ; 
then  the  Bourbons  again,  and  then  their  abdica- 
tion. And  when  Louis  Philippe  appeared  on 
the  throne,  as  the  Citizen  King,  rash  people  said, 
"  It  is  English  history  over  again  ;  the  problem 
is  solved  ;  and  the  House  of  Orleans  will  last  as 
long  as  the  House  of  Hanover."  But  it  lasted 
eighteen  years.  So  Germany  is  not  Russia, 
and  Herr  Ebert  has  already  shown  that  he  is  not 
M.  Kerensky  ;  and  it  would  be  foolish  to  suppose 
that  what  happened  in  the  one  case  must  happen 


200         POLITICAL  PROPHECIES 

in  the  other.  It  may.  In  favour  of  its  doing  so 
is  the  apparent  law  that  the  downward  course  of 
revolution  is  seldom  arrested  till  it  reaches  the 
bottom,  finds  it  very  hard,  and  rebounds ;  in 
favour  of  its  not  doing  so  is  the  truth  that  the 
Germans,  unlike  the  Russians,  are  an  extremely 
industrial  and  materialistic  people,  and  that, 
whatever  the  Russians  might  imagine  when  they 
acquiesced  in  Bolshevism,  the  Germans  at  any 
rate  know  from  the  Russian  example  that  it 
spells  universal  ruin. 

Anyhow,  if  prophecies  are  to  be  made  they 
must  be  made  not  on  superficial  parallels  such  as 
that  between  Louis  XVIII.,  followed  by  Louis 
Philippe,  and  Charles  II.  followed  by  William  III., 
or  that,  if  there  be  one,  between  Kerensky  and 
Ebert ;  but,  as  Burke  made  his,  on  a  considera- 
tion of  the  profounder  causes  of  political  changes. 
And  as  we  cannot  but  speculate  on  the  future, 
which  is  of  such  great  interest  and  vast  importance 
to  us,  prophets  there  will  always  be.  Even  those 
who  are  most  conscious  that  they  are  not  Burkes 
cannot  help  looking  round  at  this  smoking 
cauldron  of  the  world  and  asking  what  feast  of 
the  future  it  is  cooking  for  us.  And  from  that 
it  is  an  easy  step  to  making  guesses  at  the  answer. 
An  anonymous  prophet  at  any  rate  prophesies 
on  a  pleasant  system  of  limited  liability  ;  for 
though  time  may  prove  his  guesses  wrong,  it 
cannot  get  at  him  to  cover  him  with  the  ridicule 
which  he  may  deserve.  Such  a  prophet  may 
venture  where  a  statesman  and  historian  like 
Mr.  Fisher  must  keep  silence.  Even  he  perhaps 


THE  FUTURE  OF  RUSSIA       201 

will  be  wise  to  cast  his  prophecies  into  the  form 
of  queries  which  people  may  put  to  themselves 
when  they  are  speculating  on  what  may  happen 
in  the  immediate  or  more  remote  future.  He 
may  ask,  for  instance,  whether  it  is  not  so  prob- 
able as  to  be  almost  certain  that  an  extremely 
illiterate,  almost  entirely  agricultural,  half- 
Oriental  people,  like  the  Russians,  into  every 
fibre  of  whose  inherited  being  are  interwoven 
the  threads  not  only  of  religion,  mysticism, 
superstition,  call  it  what  you  will,  but  of  a 
personal  monarchy,  will  return  to  both  in 
one  form  or  another,  before  very  long.  The 
Monarchy  and  the  Church  of  the  future  may 
be,  almost  certainly  will  be,  very  different 
from  those  of  the  past :  but  the  Russian  people 
will  not  always  lie  dead  :  they  can  only  come 
to  life  again  by  something  that  moves  their 
imagination  :  and  that  can  only  be  something 
large  and  simple  and  picturesque,  something 
for  which  the  history  and  instincts  of  a  primitive 
people  are  a  preparation  and  a  call :  and,  if  so, 
what  is  there  but  some  kind  of  Monarchy  and 
some  kind  of  Church,  a  vision  real  or  unreal  of 
loyalty,  love  and  faith  directed  towards  some  holy 
and  distant  God  in  Heaven  and  some  personal 
and  visible  substitute  for  Him  on  earth  ? 

So,  again,  with  the  great  question  of  the  future 
of  democracy.  Everybody  is  hoping  to-day  that 
the  era  of  irresponsible  and  arbitrary  govern- 
ments is  over.  The  world  is  to  be  made  safe 
for  democracy.  And  so  much  we  may  hope  with 
confident  assurance.  Both  the  faith  and  hope 


202          POLITICAL  PROPHECIES 

of  the  whole  world  at  this  moment,  and  its 
material  power,  are  overwhelmingly  on  the  side 
of  democracy.  It  is  certain  of  being  given  a 
fair  chance,  and  the  probabilities  seem  in  favour 
of  its  successful  survival.  Things  look  as  if  it 
might  at  last  succeed  in  showing  that  peoples 
can  continue  for  more  than  a  moment  to  govern 
themselves  as  efficiently  and  as  justly  as  one  or 
more  men  arbitrarily  chosen  for  them  by  the 
accident  of  birth.  But  our  anonymous  questioner, 
who  on  the  whole  believes  in  this  prophecy,  may 
ask  whether  there  is  enough  realisation  in  the 
minds  of  democratic  leaders  of  the  conditions 
on  which  success  depends.  Do  they  remember 
how  short  and  troubled  the  life  of  democracy  has 
commonly  been  compared  with  that  of  monarchy 
and  aristocracy ;  how  very  rapidly,  as  a  rule,  it 
has  rushed  through  extravagance  and  excess  to 
suicide  ?  Are  they  remembering  how  very  few 
people  care  seriously,  ever  have  cared  or  ever 
will,  about  political  forms,  and  how  many  care 
about  a  quiet  life  and  being  able  to  carry  on 
their  own  daily  business  without  interference  ? 
Are  they  forgetting,  especially  the  Socialists 
among  them,  that  man  does  not  live  by  trade 
alone,  and  still  less  by  municipal  government, 
main  drainage  and  perpetual  bureaucratic  in- 
spection ?  Are  they  vainly  imagining,  like  that 
remarkable  man  the  late  Sergeant-Major  Keeling, 
that  in  the  days  to  come  a  history  of  main  drainage 
will  be  found  more  interesting  than  the  story  of 
Crecy  ?  If  so,  they  are  driving  their  ship 
straight  on  to  the  rocks,  for  men  are  not  so  dull 


IMAGINATION   AND   CUSTOM    203 

as  that.  Probably,  Mr.  Keeling,  who  learnt  so 
many  things  during  his  years  in  the  army  (learnt, 
for  instance,  so  much  of  the  wastefulness  of 
State  management  that  it  very  considerably 
modified  his  Socialism),  discovered  before  his 
death  in  the  field  that  the  ideal  life  is  not  so  drab 
a  thing  as  the  Fabian  Society  imagines,  and 
that  wife  and  child,  yes  and  country  also,  have  a 
power  of  stirring  human  emotions  which  will 
not  be  reached  by  district  councils,  trade  unions 
or  limited  companies,  till  they  have  won  it  by  a 
thousand  years  of  generous  and  passionate  appeal 
to  higher  interests  than  those  of  health  or  housing, 
wages  or  wealth.  And  if  democratic  leaders  do 
not  make  the  same  discovery,  if  they  imagine 
that  for  an  Englishman  any  International  can 
ever  replace  England,  any  State  supersede  the 
family,  or  any  philosophy  supersede  religion  it  is 
safe  to  prophesy  that  they  will  not  lead  very 
long  or  very  far.  And  this  is  no  more  true  of 
England  than  of  any  other  country.  Abstract 
argument,  however  powerful,  can  never  do 
more  than  educate  and  gradually  transform 
custom  ;  it  can  never  dethrone  her.  She  sits 
at  the  centre  of  political  life,  unconscious  of  her 
slow  but  never-ceasing  transformations,  the 
perpetual  guardian  of  its  unity,  continuity  and 
strength. 

But  an  anonymous  prophet  must  remember 
that  it  is  characteristic  of  prophets  to  take 
themselves  over-seriously,  and  must  not  rely  so 
much  on  his  anonymity  as  to  venture  on  usurping 
the  functions  of  the  preacher. 


XII 

NATIONAL   AND    INTER- 
NATIONAL* 

WE  live  in  an  age  of  Internationalism,  not 
realised  to  any  great  extent  but  at  least  discussed, 
desired  and  attempted.  It  is  true  that  the 
greatest  of  all  Internationals  issues  weakened 
and  discredited  from  the  war.  The  Vatican  in 
1914,  not  for  the  first  time,  preferred  politics  to 
ethics,  and  expediency,  or  what  ignorance  thought 
to  be  expedient,  to  right,  and  is  beginning  the 
payment  of  a  penalty  which  will  not  be  discharged 
in  our  time  or  that  of  our  sons.  It  was  easy, 
convenient,  and  profitable  to  sell  indulgences  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  the  penalty  for  doing  so 
was  the  loss  of  all  Northern  Europe  and  the  end 
of  a  United  European  Church.  That  penalty 
is  still  being  paid  to-day,  and  there  is  no  likeli- 
hood of  its  being  remitted.  So  it  was  convenient 
to  lean  on  the  support  of  Austria  and  Germany  in 
peace  and  to  refuse  to  condemn  them  either  for 
turning  peace  into  war  or  for  turning  war  into 
hell,  and  that  at  the  immediate  expense  of  an 
admittedly  innocent  and  most  Catholic  people. 
But  the  penalty  is  the  scorn  of  men  of  the  world, 
the  sorrow  of  the  good,  and  the  wide  recognition 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  April  17,  1919. 
204 


CUSTOM  AND   ORGANISATION     205 

that  the  Church  lost  in  1914  the  greatest  chance 
which  ever  came  to  her  of  recovering  the  moral 
authority  she  enjoyed  in  the  early  Middle  Age. 
The  hope  which  some  cherished  of  living  to  see 
a  revival  of  the  most  august  of  Internationals 
must  be  abandoned.  The  Roman  claim  to  a 
world-wide  spiritual  authority  was  judged  and 
found  wanting  when  Belgium  appealed  in  vain  to 
Rome  to  pronounce  judgment  on  her  oppressors. 
But  the  Church  has  two  immense  advantages 
over  the  younger  Internationals.  Indeed,  she 
has  a  third  which  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss. 
So  long  as  she  produces  Saints,  as  she  certainly 
does,  so  long,  that  is,  as  the  love  of  Christ  is  seen 
visibly  working  in  her,  she  is  indestructible  and 
eternal.  But  putting  this  supreme  advantage 
aside  she  has  two  others  of  overwhelming 
importance.  She  is  the  oldest  political  institu- 
tion in  the  world,  and  one  of  the  best  organised. 
Now,  the  two  greatest  forces  in  politics  are  first, 
history — that  is,  custom — the  prestige  of  estab- 
lished order  and  long  descent ;  and,  secondly, 
organisation,  that  is,  a  "  cadre  "  to  work  in — a 
machine  to  work  by.  The  spirit  of  man,  and 
the  ideas  which  set  it  on  fire,  are  no  doubt  a 
much  higher  force  than  either,  and  are  irresistible 
in  their  hour  of  energy.  But  such  hours  are 
rare  :  and  history  shows  custom  and  organisation 
again  and  again  defeating,  without  any  kind  of 
compromise  or  concession,  the  insurgent  assaults 
of  young  ideas  :  while  ideas  have  seldom  or 
never  triumphed  over  custom  and  order  without 
submitting  to  be  fitted,  more  or  less,  into  the 


206    NATIONAL  AND   INTERNATIONAL 

established  scheme  of  things.  In  politics  at 
least,  new  wine  is  seldom  palatable  unless  it 
comes  from  old  bottles.  The  most  successful 
of  popular  Governments,  that  of  England,  still 
works  through  monarchical  and  aristocratic 
forms  :  the  most  august  of  all  monarchies,  the 
imperial  sovereignty  of  the  Caesars,  preserved 
for  centuries  many  of  the  forms  of  the  Roman 
Republic,  and  retained  to  the  last  the  use  of  the 
almost  mystic  letters  S.P.Q.R. 

These  forces  of  history  and  of  a  working 
machine  the  universal  international  Church  has, 
and  her  young  rivals  have  not.  What  have  they 
in  their  favour  ?  What  is  bringing  them  to 
birth  ?  First  of  all  the  very  force  which  has 
greatly  weakened  the  Church  ;  the  fact  that  the 
war  took  place  at  all  and  the  horrors  which  have 
marked  it.  The  Church  loses  by  its  identifica- 
tion with  the  old  system  of  things  ;  by  its  share 
in  the  general  failure  of  that  system  to  prevent 
the  war  and  by  its  own  special  failure  in  its  own 
province,  its  refusal  of  its  own  office  as  the 
champion  of  right  against  wrong.  The  League 
of  Nations  and  the  attempts  at  an  international 
organisation  of  Labour  are  a  revolt  against  the 
war  and  the  system  which  allowed  it  to  come 
about.  It  is  true  that  both  existed  in  some  sort 
before  the  war,  and  both  deeply  disappointed 
the  hopes  which  had  been  founded  on  them. 
The  Hague  Conference  and  all  that  gathered 
round  it  had  done  admirable  work  in  creating  a 
spirit  of  willingness  to  submit  quarrels  to  arbitra- 
tion, and  had  probably  saved  the  world  from 


THE    FAILURE    OF  THE   HAGUE    207 

more  than  one  war.  It  would  no  doubt  have 
prevented  the  Great  War  if  Serbia's  offer  to  refer 
the  original  dispute  to  it  had  been  accepted. 
And  it  had  obtained  the  general  acquiescence  in 
rules  for  making  war  less  barbarous  if  it  should 
occur.  But  against  Berlin's  will  to  war,  and  will 
to  wage  it  without  limit  or  scruple  of  any  kind,  it 
proved  absolutely  powerless.  It  could  neither 
protect  Europe  from  war  nor  war  from  barbarism. 
Its  regulations  and  recommendations  proved  a 
dead  letter.  Not  only  was  there  no  realisation 
of  the  more  humane  conditions  which  The 
Hague  had  sought  to  establish  ;  there  was  a 
positive  set-back.  The  Germans  of  1914  proved 
worse,  not  better,  than  the  Prussians  of  1814  ; 
they  revived  practices  many  of  which  had  been 
extinct  since  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  some 
which  had  been  extinct  since  the  days  of  the 
Assyrian  and  Babylonian  monarchies  ;  and  they 
invented  horrors  and  abominations  previously 
unknown.  Plainly  The  Hague  as  an  international 
force  to  prevent  and  control  war  had  failed. 

The  failure  of  the  International  Socialist  or 
Labour  organisation  was  even  more  complete. 
This  had  no  important  previous  achievements 
to  its  credit,  such  as  The  Hague  had  ;  and  its 
failure  to  fulfil  its  province  of  preventing  war  was 
absolute.  Nearly  all  the  German  Socialists  at 
once  ranged  themselves  at  the  word  of  command 
behind  the  Emperor  and  the  generals.  Many, 
no  doubt,  were  simply  deceived  by  the  Govern- 
ment as  to  the  cause  of  the  war  ;  and  their 
deception  is  innocence  itself  compared  with  that 


208    NATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 

of  the  professors  and  historians  who,  with 
infinitely  greater  means  of  ascertaining  the 
truth,  were  even  more  easily  and  universally 
induced  to  countersign  the  lies  of  the  German 
Sovereigns  and  statesmen.  But  whatever  the 
degree  of  guilt  there  is  the  fact.  When  the  day 
of  trial  came  the  German  International  Socialists 
proved  to  be  nine  parts  German  and  at  most  one 
International  and  Socialist.  Only  a  very  few 
of  them  gave  any  consideration  at  all  either  to 
the  claims  of  Labour  or  Socialism,  or  to  the 
claims  of  truth,  justice  or  right.  The  voice  of 
Germany,  not  merely  Deutschland  but  Deutsch- 
turn,  the  narrow  and  arrogant  war-cry  even 
more  than  the  loved  name  of  the  ancient  home, 
instantly  drowned  all  others.  Humiliating  as  it 
is  not  only  for  all  Germans  but  for  all  men  to 
remember  it,  the  greatest  of  all  national  crimes 
was  committed  in  a  blind  unanimity  of  enthu- 
siasm, with  scarcely  a  voice  to  protest  against  it. 
Yet  these  are  warnings,  not  prohibitions.  The 
fact  that  The  Hague  Conference  proved  too 
weak  to  prevent  the  Great  War,  though  it  had 
prevented  some  smaller  ones,  should  not  forbid 
our  entertaining  hopes  that  a  stronger  inter- 
national organisation  may  succeed  where  The 
Hague  failed  ;  especially  if  care  be  taken  that 
in  the  new  world  in  which  it  is  to  work  no  such 
danger-spot  as  Berlin  was  before  1914  be  suffered 
to  remain  in  existence.  The  fact  that  the  old 
International  of  Labour  or  Socialism  achieved 
nothing  of  any  value  does  not  forbid  us  to  hope 
that  International  Labour  legislation,  to  which 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  NATIONS     200, 

the  partners  are  whole  nations,  not  a  mere  class 
or  party  in  each  nation,  may  in  the  early  future 
carry  the  world  a  great  step  forward  on  the  road 
of  social  and  industrial  progress.  International 
hopes  are  at  present  too  high  to  be  lightly 
abandoned.  The  revolt  against  the  rivalry  of 
nations  which  was,  to  a  small  extent,  the  cause 
of  the  misery  of  the  last  four  years,  is  too  wide- 
spread and  intense  to  allow  us  to  give  up  without 
a  most  determined  struggle  the  effort  to  substi- 
tute, in  some  degree,  co-operation  for  jealous 
hostility  as  the  normal  relation  between  the 
great  States  of  Europe  and  the  world.  It  seems 
almost  certain  that  that  effort  will  be  made  in 
the  form  of  a  League  of  Nations,  and  that  it 
will  be  at  least  partially  and  temporarily  success- 
ful. How  much  more  it  will  be  depends  on 
the  success  of  its  friends  in  defeating  the  two 
chief  dangers  which  beset  it.  The  first  danger, 
of  course,  is  that  which  comes  from  its  open 
enemies.  They  exist  in  all  countries ;  Chau- 
vinists in  France,  Jingoes  in  England,  filibustering 
Senators  in  America  ;  men  who  prefer  force  to 
reason,  as  the  Junkers  of  Germany  did,  and  who 
have  learnt  nothing  from  the  fall  of  the  Junkers. 
Such  men  hate  the  notion  of  a  League  of  Nations 
as  a  thing  meant  to  check  the  violence  and  un- 
reason of  the  natural  man  in  which  they  in  fact 
delight.  And  they  are  reinforced  by  a  whole 
crowd  of  men  who,  without  loving  violence  or 
hating  reason,  cannot  rise  to  belief  in  a  League 
of  Nations  because  they  are  men  of  little  faith, 
frost-bound  in  the  acceptance  of  things  as  they 


2io    NATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 

are,  unable  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  possibility 
of  a  changed  world  of  better  men,  women  and 
nations.  But  probably  not  even  these,  and 
certainly  not  the  men  of  violence,  are  so  great  a 
danger  to  the  prospects  of  a  strong  League  as 
its  extreme  admirers,  who  write  and  speak  as  if 
nothing  were  needed  but  to  draw  up  and  agree 
to  its  constitution  on  paper,  giving  it  extra- 
ordinary powers,  after  which  all  would  be  well, 
and  neither  arms  nor  diplomacy  would  be  any 
longer  required  in  a  world  of  peace. 

Talk  of  this  sort,  commonest  among  French 
Socialists,  has  had  the  result  of  making  France  the 
centre  of  the  strongest  hostility  to  the  League. 
And  so  it  will  be  everywhere.  Men  of  sense  are 
disgusted  by  such  flimsy  and  superficial  senti- 
mentality, ignorant  alike  of  history  and  of 
human  nature.  They  know  that  political  history 
shows  that  men  can  only  be  ruled  by  one  of 
two  things,  or  more  commonly  by  a  mixture  of 
both — custom  and  force.  Of  all  human  actions 
being  done  in  the  world  to-day  probably  ninety- 
nine  hundredths  are  mainly  decided  by  custom. 
In  a  few  cases,  as  in  Bolshevist  Russia,  custom  is 
entirely  superseded  by  naked  force.  But  such 
episodes  never  last  very  long.  In  any  case  to 
suppose  that  a  League  of  Nations  which  had 
neither  force  nor  custom  to  support  it  could 
survive  a  single  crisis  of  difficulty  is  to  show  a 
total  incapacity  of  political  judgment.  Confi- 
dence is  a  plant  of  slow  growth  in  political 
bosoms.  If  the  League  of  Nations  is  to  succeed 
it  must  win  general  confidence,  and  it  can  only 


CHILDHOOD   OF  THE   LEAGUE     211 

do  that  very  gradually.  It  must  grow  out  of  the 
old  order,  not  violently  break  with  it.  It  must 
do  smaller  things  successfully  in  order  that 
greater  things  may  be  entrusted  to  it.  It  must 
use  what  is  to  prepare  what  is  to  be.  Happily 
the  madmen  who  wanted  to  begin  by  making  it 
a  Super-State  have  been  put  back  into  their 
strait  waistcoats.  Happily  the  world-statesmen 
showed  at  once  that  they  had  no  intention  of 
asking  nations  which  had,  some  of  them,  been 
States  for  over  a  thousand  years  to  submit  their 
future  destinies  to  the  discretion  of  something 
which  was  not  yet  born  and  might  not  survive 
the  first  ailments  of  childhood.  Indeed  it  is 
clear  that,  like  other  infants,  the  League  will 
need  guardians  during  its  minority.  And  the 
minorities  of  great  institutions  are  often  long. 
Those  guardians  can  only  be  the  United  States 
of  America,  who  have,  perhaps,  furnished  the 
chief  driving  power  for  getting  the  League 
accepted  ;  the  British  Empire,  which  has  pro- 
vided not  only  the  existing  model  for  its  working 
but  nearly  all  the  thought  which  has  turned  an 
idea  into  a  constitutional  scheme  ;  and  France, 
who  will  soon  realise  that  no  one  has  so  much  to 
gain  by  its  successful  establishment  as  she.  But 
the  guardians,  like  the  other  members,  will 
remain  separate  nations,  each  with  its  separate 
history,  habits,  moral  and  material  powers.  To 
defy  the  separate  consciousness  of  the  nation- 
state  would  be  to  break  the  new  International 
feeling  against  a  force  too  strong  for  it.  For 
the  nation-state  has  been  growing  in  strength 


212    NATIONAL  AND  INTERNATIONAL 

ever  since  the  break  up  of  the  Roman  Empire  ; 
and  the  only  International  which  has  a  chance 
of  surviving  is  one  which  works,  not  against  it 
but  through  it  and  with  its  acceptance,  towards 
the  ultimate  goal,  when  each  may  come  to 
realise  that  it  can  have  a  larger  life  as  a  member 
of  an  incorporated  society  than  as  a  separate  and 
isolated  unit  or  individual. 

That  goal  will  not  be  reached  for  a  long  while 
yet.  There  is  still  no  real  sign  of  any  reversal 
of  the  process  of  increased  national  self- 
consciousness  which  has  been  going  on  for  a 
thousand  years.  In  the  Middle  Ages  scholars 
and  ecclesiastics,  soldiers  and  statesmen,  passed 
freely  from  the  service  of  one  country  to  that  of 
another  and  in  doing  so  neither  felt  nor  excited 
surprise.  During  the  Renascence  such  a  man  as 
Erasmus  was  equally  at  home  everywhere,  and 
talked  the  same  language,  Latin,  wherever  he  went. 
He  was  a  scholar  and  a  European,  and  seems  to 
have  had  no  feeling  of  nationality  at  all.  That 
feeling  grew  in  the  next  two  centuries,  but  was 
still  so  weak  that  one  Italian  could  govern 
France  and  another  Spain,  that  the  greatest  of 
French  soldiers  could  fight  with  Spain  against 
his  own  country,  and  that  an  English  army  * 
commanded  by  a  Frenchman  could  fight  a 

*  When  this  article  first  appeared  several  correspondents 
found  this  assertion  incredible.  There  is,  however,  at 
least  one,  and  perhaps  more  than  one,  occasion,  on  which 
the  situation  was  as  described.  At  the  battle  of  Almanza 
in  1707  the  first  Lord  Gal  way,  who  was  a  Frenchman 
(Marquis  de  Ruvigny),  commanded  the  English  army, 
while  the  French  army  was  commanded  by  the  Duke  of 
Berwick,  the  son  of  James  II.  and  Arabella  Churchill. 


ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH         213 

French  army  commanded  by  an  Englishman — 
all  inconceivable  defiances  of  national  spirit  as  it 
exists  to-day. 

That  spirit  must  be  turned  and  used.  It 
cannot  be  met  and  defeated.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  it  is  greatly  weakened 
by  the  events  of  the  last  four  years.  It  used 
to  be  believed  that  international  trade  would 
produce  international  affection.  It  ought,  of 
course,  to  have  been  obvious  that  there  was 
no  more  reason  to  expect  that  than  that  we 
should  all  love  our  grocers  and  butchers.  Any- 
how, the  promises  of  Cobden  and  the  Great 
Exhibition  proved  a  delusion.  It  would  be  an 
insult  to  compare  the  companionship  of  the 
soldiers  of  freedom  with  that  of  commercial 
travellers  and  their  customers.  But  is  it  certain 
that  even  the  glorious  partnership  in  heroism 
and  suffering  of  Belgians  and  Englishmen, 
English  and  French,  French  and  Italians,  has 
always  been  fruitful  of  increased  affection  ? 
Men  of  different  races  differ  in  temper  and 
habits ;  and  close  contact,  even  in  the  mightiest 
of  causes,  is  not  always  found  to  smooth  over  or 
explain  away  these  differences.  The  Frenchman 
who  had  an  enthusiastic  affection  for  the  English 
Army  from  a  distance  is  not  always  proof  against 
disappointment  when  close  acquaintance  brings 
him  up  against  insularity  of  mind  and  roughness 
of  manners.  Nor  is  English  sympathy  and 
admiration  always  tolerant  of  French  meanness 
in  money  matters,  private  and  public. 

These  things  are  so,  and  cannot  simply  be 

p 


2i4  NATIONAL  AND   INTERNATIONAL 

ignored.  But  of  the  three  great  efforts  at  inter- 
national action  now  before  the  world  two  make 
the  absurd  attempt  to  leave  national  feeling 
altogether  out  of  account.  The  Bolshevist  move- 
ment rapidly  shed  any  ideal  quality  with  which 
it  began,  till  it  is  now  a  mere  narrow  tyranny 
based  on  violence  and  corruption.  But  that  is 
not  all.  It  was  doomed  from  the  first  by  its 
determination  to  ignore  the  national  feeling 
which  is  nowhere  stronger  than  in  Russia  :  by 
its  attempt  to  appeal  to  an  internationalism 
which,  in  fact,  does  not  exist :  and  by  its  naked 
materialism,  violence  and  class  selfishness,  which 
were  merely  the  worst  side  of  the  Tsardom  over 
again,  only  with  a  partial  reversal  of  the  roles  of 
tyrant  and  victim.  But  if  the  Tsardom  with 
all  history  behind  it  could  not  stand,  it  is  certain 
that  the  new  tyranny,  with  nothing  at  all  behind 
it  and  everything  distinctively  Russian  against 
it,  will  stand  even  less.  It  will,  in  fact,  almost 
certainly  end  in  a  revival  of  Russian  nationality, 
which,  in  the  reaction  from  the  hated  memory 
of  Bolshevism,  will  be  more  strongly  felt  than 
ever.  So,  again,  International  Socialism  tries  to 
ignore  nations  and  see  only  classes.  Worse  still 
for  its  chances,  it  has  become,  since  Marx,  more 
and  more  purely  materialist.  Such  a  creed  has 
no  chance  against  national  feeling,  with  its 
centuries  of  high  memories  and  generous 
achievements  behind  it. 

If  I  should  die,  think  only  this  of  me  : 
That  there's  some  corner  of  a  foreign  field 
That  is  for  ever  England. 


THE   LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS      215 

Any  one  who  imagines  that  for  "  England  "  here 
you  will  ever  get  men  to  substitute  the  Fabian 
Society  or  the  House  of  Lords  or  the  Amalga- 
mated Society  of  Engineers  is  cherishing  the 
vainest  of  delusions. 

There  remains  the  League  of  Nations.  That 
is  to  be  a  league  of  something  greater  than 
classes  ;  and  it  is  to  be  a  league,  not  even  a 
society,  still  less  a  single  unit.  It  is  to  take  the 
facts  of  to-day  and  build  to-morrow  out  of  them. 
After  it  as  before  it,  France  will  still  be  France 
and  England  England  ;  the  United  States  will 
still  be  in  America,  not  in  Europe.  Each  will 
be  a  free  nation,  with  a  history  and  a  temper  of 
its  own,  with  its  own  variety  of  classes  and 
conditions,  yet  itself  something  more  than  all 
and  above  them  all,  a  body  in  which  its  many 
members  find  their  unity  and  their  life.  So 
each,  if  it  be  true  to  the  spirit  in  which  its  best 
representatives  are  accepting  the  League,  will 
bring  to  the  service  and  building  of  the  world 
of  the  future  a  combination  of  wisdom  and 
strength  which  no  mere  class  could  hope  to 
bring.  And  the  League,  as  a  whole,  will  be 
founded  on  an  ideal  which  is  universal  not 
sectional,  spiritual  not  material.  If  it  succeeds 
it  will  not  have  destroyed  the  old  world,  it  will 
have  given  it  new  birth  :  birth  into  a  new  life, 
more  just,  more  generous,  and  more  nearly 
universal. 


XIII 
OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR* 

HOPE  is  the  second  of  the  great  trinity  of 
Christian  virtues.  And  Wordsworth,  like  St. 
Paul,  puts  it  second  in  his  similar  group  of  the 
three  virtues  by  which,  as  he  asserts,  we  live. 
Probably  he  was  not  thinking  of  the  famous 
passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and 
indeed  only  two  of  his  virtues  are  verbally 
identical  with  St.  Paul's.  But  admiration, 
though  a  much  weaker  thing  than  faith,  is  after 
all  at  the  root  of  it.  We  cannot  have  the  Pauline 
sort  of  faith,  which  means  an  emotion  which 
issues  in  action,  except  for  a  person  or  an  idea 
which  first  surprises  and  then  wins  us,  which 
fills  us  first  with  wonder  and  then  with  love. 
And,  though  we  have  somehow  made  admiration 
a  so  much  weaker  word  than  either,  that  is  just 
what  it  really  consists  of — wonder  and  love. 
But  this  wonder  and  love,  though  the  foundation 
of  faith,  are  not  by  themselves  faith.  For  that 
hope  must  be  added  to  them.  And  so  perhaps 
Wordsworth  is  more  exact  in  this  three  than 
St.  Paul,  for  admiration  does  not  include  hope, 
and  therefore  in  this  trinity  hope  must  be  expressly 
added  to  admiration  and  love.  But  love  and 

*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  April  29,  1920. 
216 


THE  DUTY  OF  HOPE  217 

faith  make  the  mention  of  hope  almost  un- 
necessary. For  faith  implies  hope,  and  is  mean- 
ingless without  it.  In  either  case  the  importance 
of  hope  is  plain.  Whether  implied  in  faith  or 
superadded  to  admiration,  it  is  a  spring  of 
action,  almost  as  important  as  or  perhaps  even 
more  important  than  love  itself.  For  love,  as 
we  so  often  see,  if  deprived  altogether  of  hope, 
has  seldom  the  heart  to  act,  and  sinks  into  the 
helplessness  of  mere  sympathy. 

All  this,  if  true  at  all,  is  as  true  in  public  life 
as  in  private,  in  politics  as  in  ethics.  Those 
who  insisted  all  through  the  war,  as  Words- 
worth insisted  throughout  the  struggle  with 
Napoleon,  on  the  duty  of  hope  as  the  first  and 
paramount  duty  of  all,  are  to-day  sometimes 
strangely  invited  by  those  who  were  pessimists 
then  and  are  pessimists  now  to  go  back  on  their 
creed  of  hopefulness  and  admit  their  mistake. 
They  are  asked  now  at  any  rate  to  adopt  the 
temper  and  the  doctrines  of  those  who,  having 
been  proved  wrong  in  their  expectation  of  our 
defeat  in  war,  are  revenging  themselves  by  a 
confident  assurance  of  our  failure  in  peace.  It 
is  difficult  to  see  the  logic  which  justifies  this 
invitation.  One  would  rather  have  supposed 
that  it  was  for  those  who  proved  wrong  to 
learn  of  those  who  proved  right.  No  doubt  the 
pessimists  can  point  out  that  the  optimists  were 
often  false  prophets.  And  so  of  course  they 
were.  But  that  is  not  the  important  thing. 
Both  were  abundantly  wrong  about  details  :  the 
optimists  who  expected  that  every  offensive  was 


218     OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR 

going  to  end  the  war,  and  the  pessimists  who 
were  certain  that  everybody  was  a  fool  who  did 
not  see  that  Paris  was  going,  or  the  Channel 
ports,  or  the  Suez  Canal,  or  our  command  of  the 
sea.  Here  there  is  little  to  choose.  But  in 
the  main  issue,  and  it  cannot  be  too  often  re- 
peated that  it  was  a  moral  issue  as  well  as  an 
intellectual,  the  optimists  were  wholly  right 
and  the  pessimists  wholly  wrong.  Hope  was 
once  more  justified  of  her  children.  As  in  1812 
and  1813,  so  in  1917  and  1918  those  who  knew 
they  had  a  duty  to  do  to  the  very  end,  and  never 
doubted  that  in  the  end  they  would  get  it  done, 
proved  to  have  the  true  moral  and  political 
instinct ;  and  both  those  who  a  hundred  years 
ago  at  Holland  House  thought  that  "  the  man 
was  invincible,"  and  those  who  three  years  ago 
at  Lansdowne  House  and  elsewhere  were  sure  that 
we  never  could  defeat  the  German  Army,  showed 
moral  weakness  as  well  as  political  blindness. 
Indeed,  in  each  case  the  political  blindness  was 
partly  due  to  the  moral  weakness.  Their  faith, 
for  lack  of  hope,  had  no  life  in  it :  their  love 
degenerated  into  sympathy  :  their  admiration 
made  of  wonder  and  love  which  they  should 
have  felt  for  their  own  country  was  changed  into  a 
basor  thing  made  of  wonder  and  fear  with  which 
they  allowed  the  armies  of  the  enemy  to  over- 
whelm them. 

Is  there  not  the  same  contrast,  and  largely 
between  the  same  people,  in  the  temper  with 
which  the  problems  of  peace  are  being  faced  ? 
Now,  as  three  years  ago,  the  pessimists  have 


MILTON  AND   MR.   KEYNES      219 

plenty  of  obvious  justification  for  their  pessimism. 
The  picture  of  Europe  is  a  very  different  one 
from  what  it  was  then.  But  from  some  points 
of  view  it  is  even  darker  and  sadder.  The 
Allies  won  the  war.  But,  too  plainly,  they  have 
not  yet  won  the  peace.  The  actual  document 
which  is  called  the  Peace  Treaty  is  open  to 
very  serious  criticism.  Scarcely  anybody  defends 
the  provision  in  it  which  penalised  the  recovery 
of  German  industry  by  exposing  Germany  to 
uncertain  financial  demands  only  to  be  limited 
by  her  power  to  meet  them.  Mr.  Keynes, 
starting  from  this  strong  ground,  has  violently 
attacked  the  whole  work  of  those  who  made  the 
Treaty  in  a  book  which  exhibits  every  kind  of 
ability  except  the  political  kind,  and  shows  its 
writer  a  man  of  almost  all  the  virtues  if  we 
could  forget  that  modesty  and  a  sense  of  honour 
have  hitherto  been  counted  among  them.  But 
the  agent  who  casts  himself  for  the  part  of 
principal  is  a  well-established  figure  in  political 
comedy.  Mr.  Keynes  knows  everything  except 
the  elements  of  politics,  which  is  the  science  of 
discovering,  and  the  art  of  accomplishing,  the 
practicable  in  public  affairs.  What  was  the  title 
of  the  pamphlet  Milton  issued  a  few  weeks  before 
Charles  II.  entered  London  in  triumph  ?  Was 
it  not  something  like  "  a  short  and  easy  way  to 
establish  a  Free  Commonwealth  "  ?  Mr.  Keynes 
is  not  Milton,  and  250  years  of  political  experience 
which  Milton  could  not  possess  have  not  taught 
him  the  things  which  in  that  infancy  of  English 
politics  Milton  could  scarcely  be  expected  to 


220     OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR 

know.  He  is  still  in  the  elementary  school  of 
politics,  and  believes  that  exhibiting  on  paper 
the  desirability  of  a  particular  course  of  action  is 
solving  the  problem  of  statesmanship.  A  single 
year  of  office  in  any  Cabinet  in  Europe  would 
have  taught  him  his  mistake.  Men  are  not 
fixed  mathematical  abstractions.  They  are  very 
inconstant  living  things,  made  up  of  passions 
and  prejudices  and  habits,  absurd  loyalties  and 
unreasonable  antipathies ;  and  whether  the 
peace  of  Europe,  or  the  settlement  of  Ireland,  or, 
to  take  the  greatest  of  all,  the  establishment  of  a 
League  of  Nations  be  the  matter  in  hand,  the 
real  difficulty  is,  as  a  rule,  not  nearly  so  much 
the  discovery  of  what  is  best  to  be  done  as  of 
what  is  the  nearest  approximation  to  it  which, 
men  and  things  being  what  they  are,  has  any 
chance,  first,  of  getting  accepted,  and,  secondly, 
of  proving  workable  and  lasting. 

By  that  second  test  the  Treaty  of  Peace  has 
yet  to  be  tried,  and  it  will  assuredly  prove 
sufficiently  severe.  There  is  no  need  to  try 
it  by  unpolitical  and  fanciful  comparisons  with 
what  it  might  have  been  if  the  French  and  the 
Poles  had  been  suddenly  healed,  in  some  night 
of  miracle,  of  their  memories  both  of  a  distant 
past  in  which  they  see  nothing  but  their  own 
greatness  as  self-love  shapes  it  and  of  a  more 
recent  past  in  which  they  see  only  German 
barbarism  and  brutality  blackened  by  the  hatred 
of  the  injured.  Wise  men,  and  men  who  make 
allowance  for  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature, 
will  have  enough  to  do  without  that.  Their 


DISAPPOINTMENTS   OF  PEACE    221 

task  is  to  take  things  as  they  are  and  so  to  use 
them  as  gradually  step  by  step  to  bring  them  a 
little  nearer  to  what  they  might  be.  In  what 
spirit  are  they  to  approach  it  ?  Surely  in  the 
same  spirit  as  they  faced  the  war,  the  spirit  of  a 
modest  but  unconquerable  hope. 

There  is  no  reason  for  hope  to  be  ashamed 
of  herself  in  peace  any  more  than  during  the 
war.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  optimists  of 
peace  have  made  as  many  mistakes  as  the 
optimists  of  war.  The  making  of  peace  has 
proved  a  harder  and  much  longer  business  than 
they  supposed.  The  return  to  normal  ways,  to 
say  nothing  of  normal  prices,  has  been  much 
slower.  The  healing  of  the  temporary  insanity 
of  Russia  has  been  delayed  longer  than  the 
optimists  expected,  and  the  old  family  doctor 
on  whom  they  relied  has  had  to  give  up  the  case. 
It  is  now  seen  that  the  strait-waistcoat  which  he 
recommended  was  not  the  right  treatment.  The 
case  is  seen  to  be  one  in  which  the  patient  must 
be  allowed  to  indulge  the  cerebral  excitement 
which  is  his  disease,  so  far  as  is  compatible  with 
the  safety  of  other  people,  until  fatigue  of  body 
and  mind  have  led  him  back  to  sanity  through 
exhaustion.  All  these  disappointments  of  the 
optimist,  and  others  besides,  are  plain  enough. 
But  as  in  the  war,  the  mistakes  of  the  pessimist 
have  been  even  more  conspicuous.  He  told  us 
that  Bolshevism  would  spread  all  over  Europe 
directly  the  war  was  over.  It  has  not  yet  spread 
outside  Russia,  and  those  who  know  Germany 
best  are  most  confident  that  both  the  virtues 


222     OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR 

and  the  vices  of  Germany  will  protect  her 
against  a  system  which  would  only  be  workable 
in  a  country  where  no  one  had  acquired  any 
habits,  no  one  had  any  feeling  of  race,  and  no 
one  cared  anything  for  his  own  material  interests. 
He  told  us  that  the  extremists  who  had  every- 
where been  so  noisy  in  the  guise  of  pacifists 
during  the  war  would  sweep  every  country  as 
soon  as  elections  were  held.  In  the  last  year  of 
the  war,  and  in  the  year  and  a  half  which  has 
elapsed  since,  elections  have  been  held  nearly 
everywhere ;  and  in  all  countries,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Italy,  their  most  con- 
spicuous feature  has  been  the  rout  of  the 
Revolutionary  or  Bolshevist  Left. 

As  for  the  relations  between  Labour  and 
Capital,  grave  and  anxious  as  the  situation  un- 
doubtedly still  is,  whether  we  look  to  England, 
France,  or  America,  it  is  certainly  better,  not 
worse,  than  the  prophets  of  evil  would  have  had 
us  expect.  The  wheels  of  the  industrial  machine 
still  do  a  good  deal  of  creaking,  and  even  stop  at 
times  ;  but  we  are  perhaps  in  danger  of  allowing 
the  creaking  and  the  stoppages  which  force 
themselves  so  unpleasantly  on  our  attention  to 
make  us  forget  that  they  occupy  only  a  very 
small  portion  of  the  whole  contemporary  life  of 
the  machine,  much  the  largest  part  of  which 
passes  in  smooth  and  unnoticed  obscurity.  It 
is  true  that  some  of  the  methods  employed  to  set 
the  wheels  going  again  after  a  stoppage  seem  to 
call  up  uncomfortable  memories  of  Ethelred 
the  Unready.  Either  what  is  demanded  at  a 


STRIKES  223 

strike  is  reasonable,  in  which  case  it  ought  to 
be  given  without  waiting  for  a  strike,  or  it  is 
unreasonable,  in  which  case  it  ought  not  to  be 
given  at  all,  and  most  particularly  not  after  a 
strike.  But  it  is  easier,  as  Mr.  Keynes  does  not 
know,  to  construct  these  intellectual  dilemmas 
than  to  show  statesmen  a  way  of  never  falling 
into  them.  We  live  in  a  time  of  excitement, 
with  the  sea  of  our  politics  and  society  still 
restless  with  the  waves  of  the  most  tremendous 
of  all  storms,  waves  which  must  be  expected 
to  take  longer  than  any  others  ever  took  to 
subside.  And  if,  as  may  well  be,  there  is  nothing 
so  important  as  to  give  them  time  to  perform 
that  natural  process  of  subsiding,  it  may  be  that 
the  best  way  of  meeting  demands  which  cannot 
perhaps  be  justified  either  by  facts  or  by  argu- 
ments (but  are  not  on  that  account  any  the  less 
strongly  and  honestly  put  forward)  is  by  making 
concessions  which  could  not  get  the  approval  of 
any  strict  Court  either  of  politics  or  of  political 
economy. 

Thirty-two  years  ago  Matthew  Arnold  noted 
down  as  one  of  his  daily  mottoes  for  meditation 
some  words  of  a  French  optimist :  "  Rien  ne 
s'arrangera  plus  dans  ce  monde  que  par  la 
raison  et  requite,  la  patience,  le  savoir,  le  devoue- 
ment  et  la  modestie."  When  one  reads  such 
words  and  looks  back  on  what  happened  in  1914 
and  the  years  which  followed  it,  optimism  at 
first  seems  the  veriest  vanity  of  vanities.  And 
yet,  so  obstinate  is  optimism,  so  hardy  a  growth 
is  hope  in  men  who  mean  to  live,  that  some 


224     OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR 

believers  in  human  nature  will  still  reply  that 
the  felon  stroke  of  1914  was  the  work  of  one 
nation  or  at  most  of  two  ;  and  that  history  may 
perhaps  ultimately  judge  that  the  really  significant 
fact  about  1914  is  not  that  war  broke  out,  but 
that  such  active,  large,  generous,  sincere,  and 
widespread  efforts  were  made  to  prevent  it. 
The  old  wars  broke  out  easily  enough,  almost 
as  a  matter  of  course.  This  war  perhaps  opens 
the  new  era  by  the  horror  which  the  very  thought 
of  it  inspired  beforehand  everywhere  except 
among  the  handful  of  criminals  who  were  bent 
upon  bringing  it  about ;  and  by  the  passionate 
and  all  but  successful  efforts  of  good  men  to 
compel  them  to  listen  to  that  reason  and  equity 
and  patience  in  which  the  French  writer  sees 
the  new  rulers  of  the  world.  After  all, was  not 
George  Sand  right,  in  the  slow  way  of  being 
right  which  is  all  that  any  wise  man  will  expect 
in  politics  ?  Is  it  not  the  simple  truth  that 
everywhere  to-day  many  things  which  fifty 
years  ago  would  have  been  decided  simply  by 
bare  law,  by  the  result  of  mere  remorseless 
competition,  or  on  the  naked  system  of  "  might 
is  right,"  are  being  settled  by  conferences  and 
mutual  concessions  between  the  parties  affected  ? 
Of  course  the  settlements,  whether  the  disputes 
are  between  nations  or  between  bodies  of 
workmen  and  employers,  are  often  greatly 
influenced  by  the  forces  which  either  party  could 
bring  into  play  if  no  settlement  were  effected. 
But  is  the  hope  and  plan  of  a  League  of  Nations 
and  the  wide  force  of  reasonableness  and  good- 


EQUITY   REPLACING   FORCE     225 

will  which  have  gone  to  its  formation  to  count 
for  nothing  ?  Surely  the  mere  creation  even  of 
the  forms  of  such  a  League  proves  something, 
is  evidence  of  a  new  spirit  in  the  world  which 
did  not  exist  a  generation  ago.  It  has  difficulties 
enough  before  it,  and  it  may  fail ;  but  the 
optimist  is  surely  entitled  to  point  to  its  mere 
establishment  on  paper  as  proof  of  a  new  desire 
to  take  a  step  forward  towards  substituting  the 
rule  of  equity  for  the  rule  of  force. 

So  in  domestic  affairs  ;  is  it  unreasonable  of 
him  to  claim  that  the  mere  setting  up  of  such 
bodies  as  Whitley  Councils,  the  mere  increase 
of  the  practice  of  employers  and  employed 
meeting  together  and  discussing  difficulties  and 
differences,  is  once  more  proof  of  a  new  temper 
and  a  new  method  which  at  first  may  seem  to 
produce  at  least  as  much  friction  as  the  old,  but 
has  a  new  promise  in  it  which  the  old  could  not 
have  ?  The  new  method,  no  doubt,  leads  to 
unreasonable  claims — claims  which  are  some- 
times quite  incompatible  with  the  continuance 
of  an  industry,  and  may  yet  have  to  be  met  by 
firmer  and  harder  methods  than  concession.  Or 
rather  it  does  not  lead  to  them.  They  were 
there  before ;  only  they  were  suppressed  or 
inaudible  under  the  old  system  of  "  Do  what  I 
tell  you,  take  what  I  offer  you,  or  go."  The 
new  way  is  with  all  its  difficulties  at  least  a  move 
towards  the  recognition  of  reason  and  equity  as 
the  ultimate  court  of  appeal  in  industrial  affairs. 
Yes  ;  and  as  George  Sand  adds,  also  of  patience, 
knowledge,  good  will,  and  modesty  as  their 


226     OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR 

assessors  and  amicce  curies.  Where  could  one 
find  a  better  list  of  the  qualities  which  such  a 
court  needs  ?  They  are  not  yet  any  more 
conspicuous,  no  doubt,  in  the  average  employer 
or  workman  than  they  are  in  the  average  man. 
But  the  point,  on  which  the  optimist  may  fairly 
insist,  is  that  the  new  system  does  all  that  a 
system  can  do  to  call  them  into  existence  and 
stimulate  their  growth.  Meeting  together  is  a 
proof  of  goodwill,  a  school  of  patience  and 
modesty,  an  almost  certain  road  to  increased 
knowledge  on  both  sides.  And  perhaps  that 
increased  knowledge  is  the  most  urgent  need 
of  both.  The  employer  has  to  learn  the  work- 
man's point  of  view  and  his  determination  no 
longer  to  play  the  part  of  a  mere  tool  in  industry. 
That  is  often  very  new  to  him.  He  has  got  to 
learn  it,  think  about  it,  and  make  up  his  mind 
to  satisfy  it,  not  by  some  independent  plan  of 
his  own  but  by  some  plan  worked  out  in  con- 
junction with  his  men.  So  he  has  also  to  learn 
the  workman's  view  of  the  risk  of  periods  of 
unemployment,  and  find  some  way  of  facing  a 
difficulty  of  which  he  has  generally  thought 
little,  but  which  is  a  constant  nightmare  to 
many  workmen.  Again,  the  men  have  to  learn 
that  the  accumulation  of  capital  is  at  all  times, 
and  especially  after  a  great  war,  a  first  necessity 
for  the  life  of  the  whole  people,  and  certainly 
not  least  of  those  who  earn  weekly  wages.  For 
their  two  principal  needs  are  regular  employment 
and  abundant  supplies  of  all  kinds,  and  every 
million  added  to  the  capital  of  the  country 


THE  ENGLISH   CHARACTER      227 

inevitably  tends  to  increase  both.  They  have 
also  to  learn  that  this  accumulation  cannot  take 
place — as  may  be  seen  in  all  the  savage  and 
backward  countries  of  the  world — unless  capital 
be  assured  of  a  reasonable  return.  For  men 
will  no  more  save  without  the  promise  of  income 
than  they  will  work  without  the  promise  of 
wages.  At  least  they  will  only  take  the  chance 
of  no  return  in  case  of  failure,  a  chance  which 
happens  oftener  than  workmen  realise,  if  they 
are  also  allowed  the  other  chance — of  a  very 
high  return  in  case  of  success.  These  and  a 
hundred  other  things,  seen  now  only  on  one 
side  of  the  tables  of  conference,  may  be  fairly 
expected  to  be  seen  by  both  as  patience,  good- 
will, and  modesty  help  and  are  helped  by 
knowledge,  and  all  gradually  more  and  more 
place  themselves  at  the  service  of  reason  and 
equity. 

So  hope  insists  on  fixing  her  eyes  on  the 
sunnier  side  of  a  largely  overclouded  landscape, 
and  believes  that  in  peace  as  in  war  her  method 
will  prove  its  own  justification  by  helping  to 
furnish  the  strength  needed  to  turn  her  vision 
into  reality.  Moreover,  Englishmen  may  be 
forgiven  for  thinking  that  hope  can  nowhere 
have  a  better  foundation  to  build  on  than  the 
history  and  chaiacter  of  the  English  people. 
Have  we  net  now  for  seven  centuries  been  always 
developing  the  method  of  free  discussion,  and 
always  more  and  more  using  that,  and  not  force, 
as  the  right  way  of  adjusting  our  differences  and 
disputes  ?  What  did  our  greatest  political 


228     OPTIMISM  AFTER  THE  WAR 

thinker  put  his  trust  in  ?  Was  it  not  "  the 
inbred  integrity,  good  sense,  and  good  humour 
of  the  English  people  "  ?  May  not  hope  follow 
modestly  in  the  steps  of  Burke  and  believe  that 
these  qualities,  which  have  never  failed  us  in 
the  great  crises  of  the  past,  will  no  more  fail  us 
now  ?  For  if  the  crises  and  the  problems  of 
to-day  are  partly  new,  the  men  who  are  to  solve 
them  are  not  new,  even  if,  perhaps,  they  think 
they  are.  They  are  of  the  old  stock,  and  not  to 
credit  them  with  the  old  genius  for  rinding  a  way 
out  of  difficulties  would  be  to  deny  our  faith  in 
the  English  race. 


XIV 
CONTINUITY  IN   CHANGE* 

AT  this  New  Year  the  whole  world  seems  to 
have  reached  a  great  moment  of  transition.  It 
seems  to  have  got  near  the  top  of  the  narrow 
pass  which  will  look  over  into  a  new  era.  Some 
climb  with  high  hope  confident  that  the  unseen 
country  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountains  will 
prove  to  be  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey. 
Others,  accustomed  to  the  sights  and  sounds  of 
the  valley  in  which  they  have  always  lived,  and 
to  its  familiar  way  of  life,  shrink  from  the 
crossing  over  and  believe  that  the  mountain 
barrier  which  has  shut  them  in  has  protected 
them  from  a  barbarous  climate  and,  perhaps, 
from  barbarous  men.  The  latter  are  probably 
the  more  numerous  ;  the  former  certainly  the 
more  active  and  energetic  spirits.  Both  deceive 
themselves.  It  is  only  by  a  synthesis  of  the  two 
temperaments  that  a  right  attitude  towards  the 
new  is  to  be  found.  Everywhere,  in  politics,  in 
literature,  in  religion,  the  problem  is  the  same  ; 
it  is  that  of  finding  continuity  in  progress.  That 
is  just  what  life  is  :  something  which  is  always 
changing  yet  never  ceasing  to  be  the  same,  and 
what  Nature  does  for  the  individual  life  is  what 
*  Times  Literary  Supplement,  January  6,  19*1. 
229  Q 


230       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

we  have  to  try  to  do  for  all  forms  of  the  life  of 
society.  And,  like  all  moral  and  social  as 
opposed  to  mathematical  problems,  this  one 
does  not  admit  of  being  answered  in  any  exact 
formula  plainly  defining  the  right  course  of 
action  in  every  contingency.  No  one  can 
promise  to  say  what  either  the  utilitarian  ethical 
imperative  or  the  law  of  loving  our  neighbours  as 
ourselves  would  prescribe  as  the  right  course  in 
every  particular  occasion.  Such  laws  are  ideals, 
things  of  the  spirit,  never  to  be  completely 
expressed  in  the  letter  of  any  rules  which  can  be 
set  down  in  speech  or  on  paper.  Their  meaning 
can  only  be  learnt  through  its  practical  applica- 
tion, step  by  step.  Like  all  spiritual  things  they 
can  only  be  experienced  from  inside.  It  is 
impossible  to  state  in  a  phrase  the  aesthetic 
experience  produced  by  a  great  work  of  art.  It 
is  only  by  entering  into  it  for  himself  that  a  man 
ever  has  it  at  all ;  only  by  having  it  again  and 
again  that  he  can  hope  to  enter  into  possession 
of  anything  like  its  full  greatness. 

So  also  in  politics.  What  does  the  law  of 
continuity  in  change  mean  ?  No  one  can  say 
precisely.  No  one  can  invent  a  formula  by 
which  any  particular  proposal  can  be  instantly 
and  infallibly  tested,  and  pronounced  to  be 
either  in  accordance  with  or  contrary  to  this 
supreme  political  law.  Yet  that  is  as  far  as 
possible  from  proving  the  law  useless.  It  at 
least  lays  down  definitely  that  two  things — two 
things  which  some  people  would  think  contra- 
dictory— are  needful  for  political  health.  It  at 


CHANGE,   DECAY,  AND   BEAUTY    231 

least  draws  attention  to  the  fact  that  countries  in 
which  constitutional  change  is  avoided  with 
especial  care,  such  as  China  or  Sparta  or  Venice, 
seem  always  to  sink  into  the  decay  of  apathy. 
On  the  other  hand  states  which  make  sudden 
and  frequent  changes,  like  Athens  and  Florence 
and  the  France  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
rapidly  exhaust  themselves.  Insistence  on  con- 
tinuity is  the  first  necessity  for  the  life  of  the 
state.  All  the  long-lived  states  have,  like  Venice, 
been  exceedingly  tenacious  of  established  laws 
and  customs.  But  such  states  are  apt  to  purchase 
longevity  at  the  price  of  activity,  beauty,  and 
originality.  "  Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than 
a  cycle  of  Cathay  "  was  the  saying  of  one  of 
the  poets  who  have  best  understood  politics 
and  was  anything  but  a  revolutionary.  And 
many  would  argue  that  two  stormy  centuries 
of  Florence  much  more  than  out-value  for 
humanity  all  the  thousand  ordered  years  of  the 
Venetian  Republic,  and  that  the  century  or 
century  and  a  half  of  Athens  which  carries  us 
from  /Eschylus  to  Demosthenes  is  worth  a 
hundred  whole  histories  of  Sparta,  in  which 
there  is  little  besides  Leonidas  (with  the  help, 
too,  of  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  poets  whom 
Athens  inspired  and  sheltered)  who  can  very 
greatly  move  us.  Yet,  perhaps,  it  is  chiefly  the 
business  of  the  other  arts  to  adorn  the  life  of 
the  state  but  of  the  political  art  to  preserve  it. 
And  while  the  ultra-conservative  states  of  China 
and  Venice,  the  moderately  conservative  Rome 
and  England  have  lived  to  a  very  great  age, 


232        CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

Athens  and  Florence  had  brief  and  troubled 
lives.  Athens  and  Florence,  and,  one  may  add, 
the  Paris  of  the  last  century  were  all  more  than 
once  entered  by  a  foreign  conqueror.  Peking, 
Sparta,  Rome,  Venice,  and  London  all  passed 
through  many  centuries  without  seeing  an 
invader.  Stability  is  probably  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  elements  of  political  strength. 
The  political  restlessness  of  Athens  and  Florence 
and  Paris  was  in  each  case  followed  by,  and  was 
probably  the  cause  of,  the  loss  at  once  of  freedom 
at  home  and  power  abroad.  The  French 
Revolution  led  at  once,  and  inevitably,  to 
Napoleon,  as  Burke  had  foreseen ;  and  his 
restless  military  genius  combined  with  the 
revolutionary  restlessness  of  the  French  people 
to  exhaust  France  to  such  an  extent  that  she  has 
never  since  1815  been  the  power  in  Europe 
which  she  was  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  We  can  all  now  see,  though  it  was 
not  always  plain  at  the  time,  that  since  Waterloo 
she  has  never  possessed  the  resources  which 
enabled  her  under  Louis  XIV.  to  play  a  decisive 
part  in  the  most  disastrous  war  ever  waged  by 
England,  and  under  Napoleon  to  overrun  all 
Europe  ;  and  though  many  who  should  have 
known  better  feared  her  under  Napoleon  III., 
all  such  fears  received  their  final  answer  at 
Sedan.  During  the  fifty-five  years  which 
separated  Waterloo  from  Sedan  she  had  re- 
covered strength  certainly,  but  never  enough 
to  place  her  in  the  same  position  relatively  to 
the  rest  of  the  world  as  she  occupied  ten,  twenty, 


FRANCE   SINCE  WATERLOO     233 

and  two  hundred  years  before  Waterloo.  Her 
rivals  had  grown  more  rapidly  than  she  ;  the 
wealth  and  population  of  England,  the  military 
power  of  Germany,  the  new  unity  of  Italy,  had 
made  such  dreams  as  those  of  Louis  XIV.  and 
Napoleon  no  longer  merely  impracticable  but 
absurd.  Such  a  price  has  France  permanently 
paid  for  twenty-five  years  of  feverish  change  and 
exaltation,  the  madness  of  freedom  and  the 
madness  of  slavery.  Not  till,  perhaps,  the  last 
twenty  years  has  any  Government  of  hers  been 
able  to  feel  assured  of  ten  years'  continuance. 
At  last  the  Third  Republic,  having  escaped  the 
Boulanger  and  Dreyfus  dangers,  was  able  to 
face  with  a  united  front  the  supreme  ordeal  of 
the  war  and  to  emerge  from  it,  bleeding  indeed 
profusely,  but  triumphant ;  and  when  five  more 
years  have  passed  it  will  be  possible  to  say  that 
for  more  than  half  the  period  since  Waterloo 
the  political  system  of  France  has  remained 
unchanged,  and  that  the  spirit  of  continuity  has 
begun  to  reassert  itself  against  the  eternal  round 
of  change. 

But  with  all  the  world  of  to-day  in  an  orgy 
of  change  how  shall  that  spirit  find  strength  to 
do  its  work  in  France  or  elsewhere  ?  The  war 
has  left  us  face  to  face  not  only  with  political 
and  national  changes  on  the  widest  scale  but 
with  something  much  more  difficult  to  deal 
with — a  whole  atmosphere  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  old  and  aspiration  after  the  new  :  all 
that  is  vaguely  called  political,  social  and 
economic  unrest.  The  Peace  Treaty  of  1919 


234       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

has  recast  the  map  of  Europe.  This  has  been 
done,  broadly  speaking,  on  the  basis  of  the 
principle  of  nationality,  and  of  the  choice  of  the 
people  concerned  in  the  changes.  The  Treaty 
is  the  first  in  the  history  of  Europe  which  has 
been  founded  on  a  higher  ideal  than  that  of 
"  possession  is  nine-tenths  of  the  law "  and 
"  J'y  suis  j'y  reste,"  or  even  that  of  legal  inheri- 
tance and  the  family  property  of  Royal  person- 
ages, one  or  other  of  which  was  the  inspiration 
of  most  or  all  of  the  old  treaties.  And  that,  of 
course,  is  just  what  produces  the  present  political 
difficulty.  Ideals  are  always  destructive  things  ; 
part  of  their  business  is  the  destruction  of  some- 
thing which  needs  to  be  replaced  by  something 
else.  The  Gospel,  in  St.  Paul's  view,  did 
destroy  the  Law ;  and  even  He  who  declared 
that  He  came  not  to  destroy  it  but  to  fulfil  it 
gave  the  other  side  of  that  saying,  as  He  did  with 
so  many  of  His  sayings,  when  He  poured  forth 
those  striking  contrasts  between  what  was 
"  said  by  them  of  old  time  "  and  what  "  I  say 
unto  you."  And  the  destructiveness  of  ideals 
is  all  the  greater,  perhaps,  because  of  their 
necessary  and  essential  indefinableness.  No- 
body can  say  exactly  what  Mr.  Wilson's  famous 
Fourteen  Points  command  or  forbid.  Some 
people  assert  that  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  is  in 
flagrant  contradiction  with  them  ;  others,  in- 
cluding Mr.  Wilson,  declare  that  it  is  founded 
upon  them.  This  dispute  is  far  from  proving 
that  they  or  the  other  idealisms  which  became 
so  prominent  in  the  last  year  of  the  war  were 


THE   NEW  EUROPE  235 

empty  and  useless.  Far  from  it.  No  sane 
criticism  of  the  Treaty  can  deny  that  those 
idealisms  wrote  their  mark  all  over  it,  even  though 
they  did  not  obliterate  all  others. 

And  now  the  problem  is  how  to  preserve  the 
idealist  gains  achieved  on  paper  and  partly 
realized.  Austria  and  Turkey  are  gone — the  old 
Austria  and  the  old  Turkey,  at  any  rate.  Even 
Germany  has  lost  much  of  her  old  self.  In  their 
place  is  a  motley  of  new  States — a  new  Serbia  or 
Jugo-Slavia,  a  new  Poland,  a  new  Bohemia,  a 
new  Greece,  a  new  Esthonia,  an  enlarged  France 
and  Italy  and  Denmark.  The  changes  are 
plainly  on  a  scale  which  has  never  been  attempted 
before.  They  exhibit  the  far-reaching,  what 
some  would  call  the  dangerous,  action  of  general 
principles  in  political  matters.  Those  who  have 
brought  them  about  have  evidently  carried  to 
the  extreme  edge  of  safety,  if  not  beyond  it,  the 
intrusion  of  abstract  doctrines  and  their  logical 
application  into  politics.  How  can  so  enormous 
a  dose  of  change  be  assimilated  by  the  digestion 
of  Europe  ?  Obviously  only  by  a  very  careful 
diet  after  swallowing  it.  There  can  be  no 
chance  of  the  present  arrangements  proving 
permanent  unless  the  new  States  are  extremely 
abstemious  in  the  matter  of  ambitions  and 
novelties  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Action  and 
reaction  are  always  at  work  in  human  nature, 
and  not  least  in  politics.  The  thing  is  to  expect 
reaction,  make  it  your  own,  and  guide  it.  If  you 
do  not,  it  overwhelms  you.  Poland,  Jugo-Slavia, 
and  even  Italy  itself,  have  in  the  last  six  years 


236       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

had  enough  nationalist  advance  and  excitement 
about  external  politics  to  last  them  at  least  for  a 
generation.  Their  own  peoples  will  inevitably 
feel  a  satiety  of  it,  while  their  neighbours  are 
thoroughly  tired  of  being  worried  and  disturbed. 
Their  hope  lies  in  quietness,  in  consolidation  of 
their  gains,  and,  most  important  of  all,  in  making 
the  changes  which  have  occurred  as  little  obvious, 
ostentatious  and  troublesome  as  possible.  They 
have  to  remember  that  one  of  the  strangest  but 
most  certain  facts  of  human  nature  is  that 
people  more  easily  bear  great  evils  to  which  they 
are  accustomed  than  smaller  evils  which  are  new. 
Men  who  have  escaped  from  the  despotism  of  a 
tyrant  are  more  actively  critical  of  small  failings 
in  the  new,  benevolent  government  than  they 
were  of  the  horrors  to  which  they  had  been 
born.  All  these  new  States  should  therefore 
incorporate  all  that  is  in  any  way  tolerable  of 
the  ways  and  habits  of  the  old.  There  is  no  sure 
way  of  averting  the  danger  of  the  mood  which 
leads  to  reactions  and  counter  revolutions  but 
by  going  to  meet  it  with  a  policy  of  continuity. 
The  success  of  the  old  France  in  Alsace  was  due 
to  her  altering  as  little  as  possible  in  the  laws  and 
habits  of  the  country  she  incorporated.  There 
are  few  appetites  for  change  so  hungry  that  a 
transfer  of  allegiance  does  not  satisfy  them.  The 
other  changes  should  be  as  few  and  as  unobtrusive 
as  possible.  So  continuity  will  avert  the  reaction 
which  might  otherwise  undo  the  blessings  of 
change. 
The  same  law  is  at  work  in  the  still  more 


INDUSTRY  AND   CAPITALISM    237 

difficult  field  of  economics  and  industry.  The 
democratic  principles  put  forward  by  the  Allies 
in  the  war  have  combined  with  the  Revolution 
of  Russia  to  excite  the  wage-earning  classes  to  a 
mood  of  great  but  vague  expectations  all  over 
the  world.  They  had,  even  before  the  war, 
become  utterly  impatient  of  the  industrial 
system  which  beginning  in  England  had  in  a 
hundred  years  spread  all  over  Europe.  They 
attributed  its  evils  to  what  they  called  Capitalism, 
which  they  imagined  to  be  a  new  and  mischievous 
thing,  whereas  it  is  an  old  and  beneficent  thing 
without  which  production  can  never  be  carried 
beyond  the  stage  of  infancy.  This  belief,  with 
others  equally  crude,  led  to  the  second  Russian 
Revolution,  which  in  the  attempt  to  destroy 
Capitalism  has  almost  totally  destroyed  Russia. 
No  country  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  ever 
gone  back  so  fast  as  Russia  has  during  the  last 
few  years.  It  will  take  many  years,  and  they 
must  be  years  of  capitalism,  before  she  can  again 
approach  the  stage  of  prosperity  which  she  had 
reached  before  the  war.  This  does  not  mean 
that  we  must  acquiesce  in  the  admitted  evils  of 
the  old  industrial  system.  We  shall  not  acquiesce 
in  them  ;  we  are  not  doing  so.  The  interests  of 
Labour  find  a  place  in  the  Peace  Treaty  which 
they  never  found  in  any  before  it.  It  recognises 
the  claim  of  workmen  to  have  some  voice  in 
deciding  the  conditions  of  their  labour  and  its 
remuneration.  Already  in  England  wages  and 
conditions  have  greatly  improved,  perhaps  be- 
yond what  it  will  be  possible  to  maintain  unless 


238       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

labour  becomes  more  productive.  These  matters 
are  now  almost  always  settled,  not  by  naked 
competition,  but  by  agreement  between  repre- 
sentatives of  employers  and  employed.  This 
would  by  itself  be  a  great  advance.  But  a  far 
greater  is  the  recognition,  in  the  systems  proposed 
for  the  future  management  of  the  mines  and 
railways,  of  the  claim  of  the  workmen  to  some 
share  in  the  control  of  the  business  in  which 
they  are  employed.*  All  these  things  are,  as 
they  should  be,  tentative  and  experimental.  We 
are  on  the  whole  following  the  traditional  English 
method  of  feeling  our  way.  The  English 
working  man  of  advanced  views  has  paid  some 
lip  worship  to  the  Russian  break  with  all  the 
industrial  past,  but  he  is  too  practical,  as  a  rule, 
to  desire  its  application  here.  He  knows  that  it 
is  one  thing — and  a  thing,  as  the  proof  shows, 
ruinous  enough — to  introduce  it  into  a  country 
whose  manufactures  occupied  a  tiny  fraction  of 
its  population,  and  quite  another,  a  thousand 
times  more  fatal,  to  do  so  in  one  the  bulk 
of  whose  population  is  manufacturing  and 

*  These  proposals  appear  at  present  (July,  1921)  to  have 
been  abandoned  or  found  impracticable.  But  it  is  likely 
enough  that  further  efforts  may  be  made  before  very  long 
to  work  out  more  satisfactory  schemes  with  the  same 
object.  Meanwhile  the  scheme  of  something  like  Profit 
Sharing  arranged  between  coalowners  and  miners  has 
received  a  striking  tribute  from  the  miners'  leader,  Mr. 
Hodges,  who  described  it  as  "  the  most  far-reaching 
proposal  that  has  been  made  in  modern  industry."  It 
certainly  carries  that  most  hopeful  of  all  solutions  of 
industrial  disputes  and  distrust  far  further  than  it  has  ever 
been  carried  before. 


THE  NEW  INDUSTRIAL  ORDER   239 

industrial.  He  feels,  therefore,  and  as  the  headi- 
ness  induced  by  the  war  diminishes  will  more 
and  more  feel,  that  the  right  thing  is  to  repair, 
alter  and  adapt  an  old  industrial  house,  not  to 
pull  it  down  because  it  was  in  some  parts  in- 
convenient or  unhealthy.  He  clearly  feels  that 
change  is  necessary,  and  means  to  insist  upon  it ; 
but  he  also  feels,  dimly  perhaps,  but  with  a  kind 
of  conviction  that  he  could  not  express  and  is 
hardly  aware  of,  that  something  which  is 
continuity  (though  he  would  not  use  that  word) 
is  necessary  too.  He  will  gradually  find  his  way 
to  a  new  and  better  order  of  industry  in  which 
he  will  no  longer  be  a  mere  "  hand,"  but  a  co- 
operating and  understanding  partner  under  one 
system  or  another,  the  best  of  which  will  not  be 
discovered,  and  certainly  not  perfected,  for  a  long 
time  to  come. 

Part  of  the  continuity  will  certainly  be  capital, 
both  his  own  and  other  people's.  Here,  too, 
change  will  no  doubt  occur.  The  capitalist  of 
the  future  will  in  some  ways  be  in  a  different 
position  from  the  capitalist  of  the  past.  But 
capital  and  the  reward  of  capital  there  will 
certainly  be  :  for  without  it  industrial  progress  is 
absolutely  impossible.  In  a  primitive  prairie 
where  two  men  are  bringing  patches  into  cultiva- 
tion and  one  eats  and  drinks  all  the  product  of 
his  crops,  while  the  other  saves  part  of  it,  sells  it, 
and  buys  the  means  by  which  he  himself  or 
another  man  can  bring  another  patch  into 
cultivation,  it  is  solely  by  the  last  that  production 
is  increased,  and  solely  because  he  uses  part  of 


240       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

his  product  as  capital  on  which  he  necessarily 
expects  a  return.  So  he  grows  rich  while  the 
other  remains  poor.  Their  relative  positions 
are  important  only  to  themselves.  What  is 
important  from  the  public  point  of  view  is  that 
the  man  who  grows  rich  has  benefited  his 
country,  and  could  not  help  doing  so  if  he  were 
a  devil  of  malice,  while  the  man  who  remains 
poor  is  for  whatever  reason  the  man  of  the 
parable  who  keeps  his  talent  in  a  napkin  and  is 
an  unprofitable  servant  to  his  country.  All 
capital  has  its  origin  in  saving,  which  is  postponing 
a  small,  present  and  certain  enjoyment  to  a 
larger,  future  but  problematic  one.  The  more 
the  workman  is  admitted  into  the  councils  of 
business  the  more  he  will  see  this.  No  new 
railway  can  be  built,  no  new  manufacture  begun, 
without  capital  which  some  one  must  have 
saved  and  must  be  prepared  to  risk.  And  as  new 
enterprises  often  fail,  the  more  risky  they  are  the 
larger  must  be  the  possible  profit  in  the  event  of 
success.  The  workman  is  apt  to  fancy  that  all 
capital  secures  a  high  return.  A  slight  acquaint- 
ance with  the  history  of  limited  companies  or 
with  Stock  Exchange  quotations  would  at  once 
correct  this  delusion.  Perhaps  it  is  most  easily 
corrected  by  the  history  of  two  companies,  of  one 
or  other  of  which  he  is  almost  sure  to  have  heard. 
The  District  Railway  Company  of  London  has 
paid  wages  to  labour  and  given  a  service  of 
trains  to  the  public  for  over  half  a  century  ;  and 
the  Manchester  Ship  Canal  has  done  the  same 
for  a  shorter  period.  But  since  1882  the  Railway 


THE  RISKS  AND  USES  OF  CAPITAL  241 

has  not  paid  a  penny  of  interest,  nor  did  the 
Canal  begin  to  do  so  till  five  years  ago,  to  those 
who  found  the  capital  which  made  possible  the 
paying  of  those  wages  and  the  rendering  of  those 
services.  They  need  not  be  pitied.  They  took 
their  risk  and  lost.  But  neither  would  they 
have  deserved  to  incur  obloquy  if  they  had  won 
instead  and  secured  a  return  of  twenty,  thirty,  or 
forty  per  cent.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  if 
an  enterprise  does  badly  it  may  still  provide 
enough,  as  these  have  done,  for  the  workmen's 
wages  ;  indeed,  of  course,  it  would  at  once 
cease  altogether  if  it  did  not.  But  if  that  stage 
of  failure  is  reached  and  the  workmen  lose  their 
employment,  they  may,  and  generally  do,  find 
other  employment,  however  seriously  they  suffer, 
and  they  often  do  suffer  very  seriously,  in  the 
meanwhile.  The  capitalist,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  lost  his  capital  altogether  ;  it  has  simply 
ceased  to  exist ;  it  is  not  there  any  longer  to  be 
transferred  to  a  new  enterprise.  All  this  is 
elementary  enough  ;  but  to-day  it  has  ceased  to 
be  superfluous  to  point  out  that  without  continu- 
ally accumulated  capital  there  can  be  no  increase 
in  public  production,  and  that  without  a  prospect 
of  a  fair  return  there  will  be  no  accumulation  of 
capital.  So  much  continuity  there  must  be. 
But  it  is  compatible  with  many  changes,  the  best 
of  which  would  be  for  the  workmen  themselves 
to  become  more  and  more  the  providers  of 
capital  for  their  own  trades. 

History  warns  us  of  another  financial  rock  on 
which  democracy  must  not  run  if  it  is  to  be 


242       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

saved.  That  is  the  rock  of  over-taxation. 
Over-taxation  of  the  poor  played  a  large  part 
in  bringing  about  the  French  Revolution  ; 
over- taxation  of  everybody,  and  especially  the 
rich,  was  one  of  the  most  certain  causes  of  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  barbarism  and 
poverty  of  Asia  are  due  to  the  fact  that  from  time 
immemorial,  and  especially  since  the  conquest 
of  the  Turks  in  Western  Asia,  any  one  who  was 
visibly  rich  was  instantly  despoiled  by  the 
agents  of  the  Government.  The  consequence 
is  that  the  temptation  to  save,  on  the  results  of 
which  all  economic  development  depends,  has 
been  much  weaker  in  Asia  than  in  Europe  ; 
capital  has  not  been  accumulated  because  of 
the  probability  of  its  being  confiscated  ;  and 
consequently  the  trading  and  manufacturing 
operations  by  which  not  merely  the  traders  but 
their  whole  countries  are  enriched  have,  for 
lack  of  security,  not  come  into  existence.  The 
present  comparative  prosperity  of  India  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  under  the  British  rule  a  man  has 
known  that  if  he  made  a  fortune  it  would  remain 
his,  which  is  just  what  he  did  not  know  under 
the  old  rulers  of  India.  Some  theorists  of  the 
West  imagine  that  the  plan  of  seizing  through 
the  tax-gatherer  half  or  three-quarters  of  the 
wealth  of  the  rich  is  a  new  and  brilliant  discovery 
of  their  own.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  oldest 
of  all  systems  of  taxation  ;  and  its  results  are 
written  in  the  history  of  all  parts  of  Asia,  where 
commonly  not  even  the  tax-gatherer  has  been 
able  to  find  any  wealth  to  seize.  The  making  of 
wealth  is  usually  a  business  involving  labour  and 


NEW  USES   FOR  TAXES          243 

self-denial ;  and  men  will  not  incur  either  until 
they  are  fairly  secure  of  the  reward.  The 
consequence  is  that  countries  in  which  the 
reward  is  denied  remain  in  a  condition  of  general 
poverty  and  backwardness.  There  is  no  escape 
from  this,  and  if  Western  democracies  imitate 
the  policy  of  Oriental  rajahs  they  will  produce 
the  same  result  and  pay  the  same  penalty. 

So  much  for  continuity  in  economics,  and 
fiscal  policy.  Yet  there  is  even  here  another 
side.  The  modern  democracy,  though  exactly 
as  subject  to  economic  law  as  the  rajah,  is  not 
in  other  respects  exactly  like  him.  It  does  not 
spend  the  proceeds  of  the  taxes  mainly  on 
silks  or  wines  or  jewels  or  women.  In  theory 
and  aim,  at  any  rate,  it  spends  them  on  promoting 
the  public  good.  Health  and  education,  the 
judicial  administration,  police,  roads,  and  other 
such  matters  are  among  its  heaviest  expenses. 
Almost  the  heaviest  of  all  in  England  is,  in  its 
various  forms,  the  relief  of  the  poor,  than  which 
none  is  capable  of  being  more  beneficial,  and  none 
of  being  more  pernicious,  to  the  life  of  the  State. 
What  we  see  in  all  this  is  the  universally  accepted 
policy  of  the  democracies,  which  is  that  of 
applying  the  public  funds,  at  any  rate  after  the 
protection  of  the  State  from  external  dangers 
and  sometimes  to  the  neglect  of  that  primary 
duty,  to  the  enlargement  and  betterment  of  the 
life  of  the  whole  people.  There  is  the  element 
of  change,  which  is  good  and  indeed  final.  The 
Magistrates  in  Quarter  Sessions  governed  the 
English  counties  far  more  economically  than  the 
present  County  and  District  Councils,  with  even 


244       CONTINUITY  IN  CHANGE 

less  suspicion  of  jobbery,  and,  within  their 
limits,  quite  as  efficiently.  But  that  is  just  the 
point.  Their  limits  were  too  narrow.  Nobody 
dreams  of  desiring  to  return  to  them.  Long 
before  the  war  the  nation  had  begun  to  demand 
a  larger  conception  of  their  functions  from  all 
its  officials,  municipal  as  well  as  national.  The 
demand  has  grown  since  the  war.  It  means 
that  the  action  of  the  State,  which  used  to  be 
mainly  negative,  almost  an  affair  of  regulation 
and  police,  should  in  many  spheres  become 
positive,  an  affair  of  instruction,  inspiration  and 
example.  Every  one  now  desires  this.  But 
every  one  with  a  sense  of  realities  knows  that  it 
must  be  done  with  caution.  Bureaucracies, 
which  consist  of  men  with  fixed  salaries  spending 
other  people's  money,  are  almost  invariably 
wasteful  and  unp  regressive.  They  tend  to 
become  a  ceremonial  priesthood,  doing  the 
things  which  they  have  always  been  accustomed 
to  do,  and  identifying  the  interest  of  their  own 
order  with  the  good  of  the  State. 

Will  the  new  democracies — and  the  oldest 
to-day  have  a  new  spirit — be  able  to  keep 
enough  of  the  old  woild  to  save  the  new  ?  Will 
they  be  able  to  unite  their  policy  of  ideas  and 
sympathy,  alike  in  foreign  and  home  affairs, 
with  enough  caution,  with  enough  sense  of  the 
facts  which  limit  and  condition  human  progress, 
with  enough  instinct  for  that  continuity  without 
which  progress  is  a  thing  in  the  air  having  no 
foundations — in  a  word,  with  enough  history,  to 
give  its  philosophy  a  chance  of  being  engrafted 
into  the  political  tree  of  life  ?  That  is  the 


THE  SALVATION  OF  DEMOCRACY    245 

problem,  of  such  absorbing  interest,  of  such 
immeasurable  gravity,  of  which  the  next  genera- 
tion will  give  the  solution.  Landor  in  one  of 
his  Conversations  makes  Machiavelli  say  that 
"  democracies  have  enemies  in  most  of  the  rich, 
in  more  of  the  timorous,  and  nearly  in  all  the 
wise."  This  always  has  been  true,  and  still  is  : 
must  it  always  remain  so  ?  Monarchies  and 
aristocracies  have  commonly  died  of  the  worship 
of  an  inequality  false  to  nature  ;  and  of  forgetting 
that  change  is  of  the  essence  of  life.  Democracies 
have  died,  even  more  surely  and  much  more 
quickly,  of  the  opposite  things,  of  the  worship 
of  an  equality  as  false  as  the  inequality  of  the 
others,  and  of  forgetting  that  the  present  is 
rooted  in  the  past  and  dies  if  it  be  plucked  away 
from  its  roots.  The  only  democracy  which  has 
ever  continued  to  flourish  on  a  great  and  ever 
greater  scale  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  has 
all  throughout  its  life  allowed  its  caprices  to  be 
controlled,  indeed  to  be  repressed,  by  an  almost 
unchangeable  Constitution,  which  it  owes,  first, 
to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  its  birth, 
secondly  to  the  rare  wisdom  and  patriotism  of 
its  founders,  and  thirdly  to  their  happy  mis- 
reading of  the  English  political  system  which 
they  desired  to  imitate.  Such  a  combination  of 
felicities  will  not  easily  occur  again.  If  the 
democracies  of  Europe  are  to  be  saved  and  to 
build  the  new  world,  they  must  work  out  their 
salvation  as  much  by  their  political  justice, 
temperance  and  teachableness  as  by  their  tender- 
ness to  the  weak,  their  faith  in  humanity,  and 
their  hopefor  a  better  and  more  generous  order. 

R 


INDEX 


ABERDEEN,  Lord,  28,  31 

^Egean  Sea,  114 

Albert,  H.R.H.  Prince,  character- 
istics, 1 8  ;  death,  19  ;  policy, 
3°,  32,  33 

Almanza,  battle  of,  212  note 

Al thorp,  Lord,  49 

American  Constitution,  the,  25 

Amiens,  Peace  of,  190 

Anson,  Sir  William,  book  on  the 
Constitution,  26,  34 

Aristotle,  192,  196 

Arnold,  Matthew,  daily  motto, 
223 

Asia,  poverty,  196,  242 

Asquith,  Rt.  Hon.  H.  N.,  in  ; 
optimism,  169 

Athens,  changes  in  constitution, 
231 

Austria,  Memorandum  on  the 
Eastern  question,  115;  col- 
lapse, 235 


I  Bohemia,  changes  in,  235 

;  Bolshevists,     221  ;      revolutic 

198  ;   characteristics.  214 
!  Bradford,  Lady,  relations  wit 
Disraeli,     96,     105  ;      co 
spondence  with  him,  102 
Bradford,  Lord,  106 
Bridgeman,  Commander,  102 
Bright,  John,  82,  90,  137 
!  Bristol,  port  of,  195 
British  Constitution,  the,  24 
Buckle,  George  Earle, "  The  1 
of  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield,"  65-68,  79,  94  ; 
criticisms  on,   67  ;    editor  of 
The  Times,  94  ;  style  of  writing, 
98-100 

'  Bulgaria,  114 

I  Burke,  Edmund,  motives  for 
entering  public  life,  52  ; 
political  views,  60  ;  saying 
of,  149  ;  prophecy,  198,  200 


BALANCE  of  power,  doctrine,  178; 
meaning  of  the  term,  179 

Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  A.  J.,  41  ; 
Committee  of  Imperial  De- 
fence, in  ;  intellectual  fer- 
tility, 162 

Balkan  Peninsula,  114 

Bateson,  W.,  "  Common  Sense 
in  Racial  Problems,"  5 

Beach,  Sir  Michael  Hicks,  152 

Beaconsfield,  Benjamin  Disraeli, 
Earl  of,  Political  Life  of,  45, 
65,  79 1  94  ;  see  Disraeli 

Beaconsfield,  Lady  ;  see  Disraeli, 
Mrs. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  123 

Bentinck,  Lord  George,  death,69 

Berlin,  Treaty  of,  107,  112 

Berwick,  Duke  of,  in  command 
of  the  French  army,  212  note 

Bismarck,  Prince,  opinion  of 
Disraeli,  112 


CABINET,  unity  of  the,  152 
Calvin,  J.,  138 
Canada,  Dominion  of,  87 
Canning,     Rt.     Hon.     George, 

Prime  Minister,  133 
!  Capital,  value  of,  239-241 
j  Capital    and    Labour,    relations 

between,  222,  225-227 
I  Capitalist,  position  in  the  future, 

239 

j  Carlyle,  Thomas,  4 
I  Caroline,  Queen,  7 
Catherine  II.,  Empress,  197 
Catholic  Emancipation,  33 
Chamberlain,  Rt.  Hon.  J.,  71  ;  re- 
lations with  Lord  R.  Churchill, 
152,  160  ;    first  meeting  with 
Lord  Salisbury,  1 54 
Change,  continuity  in,  229-246 
Charles  I.,  King,  7  ^ 
Charles  II.,  King,  7  ;  entry  into 
London, 219 


INDEX 


247 


Chatham,  William  Pitt,  First 
Earl  of,  128  ;  oratory,  45 

Chesterfield,  Lady,  correspon- 
dence with  Disraeli,  102  ; 
relations  with  him,  105 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  9 

China,  constitutional  continuity, 
231 

Church,  the,  failure  of,  204,  206  ; 
advantages,  205 

Chui chill,  Lord  Randolph,  148  ; 
Leader  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, 148  ;  career,  149  ; 
quarrels,  152,  160  ;  plan  of  a 
coalition,  154  ;  resigns  the 
India  Office,  155  ;  Budget 
scheme,  155  ;  confidence  in 
himself,  156  ;  complex  per- 
sonality, 157  ;  favourite  books, 
158  ;  audacity,  159  ;  charac- 
teristics, 160  ;  political  views, 
161 

Churchill,  Winston  Spencer, 
"  Lord  Randolph  Churchill," 
148  ;  criticism  on,  150-152 

Cicero,  speeches,  46,  79 

Cintra,  Convention  of,  184 

Clarence,  Duke  of,  death,  23 

Cobden,  Richard,  60,  76 

Colenso,  Bishop,  83 

Conroy,  Sir  John,  14 

Conservative  Party,  legislative 
measures,  108  ;  principles,  109 

Constantinople  Conference,  115 

Continuity  in  change,  229-246 

Cork,  port  of,  195 

Corn  Laws,  Repeal  of  the,  51 

County  and   District  Councils, 

244 

Cranmer,  Archbishop,  138 

Creevey,  Mr.,  10 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  138 

Cumberland,  Duke  of,  23  ;  re- 
lations with  Henry  Fox,  123  ; 
advice  to  him,  125 

DARWIN,  Charles,  83 
Delane,  J.  T.,  197 


Democracy,  future  of,  201  ; 
modern,  243-246 

Denmark,  86,  87  ;  changes  in, 
235 

Derby,  Lord,  29  ;  characteristics, 
69  ;  attitude  on  the  question  of 
Protection,  70,  72  ;  result  of 
his  refusal  of  office,  72,  107  ; 
policy,  82,  112 

Devonshire,  Duke  of,  49,  123  ; 
relations  with  Lord  R.  Church- 
ill, 152  ;  characteristics,  153 
(123  is  not  the  same  Duke) 

Disraeli,  Mrs.,  53,  93,  96 

Disraeli,  Rt.  Hon.  Benjamin,  2, 
4,  41  ;  characteristics,  19,  57, 
73,  103,  162  ;  on  absolute 
government,  32  ;  attacks  on 
Peel,  45-47,  70  ;  character, 
47-49  ;  charge  against,  48-5 1 ; 
motives  for  entering  public 
life,  52  ;  relations  with  Peel, 
53  ;  with  Stanley,  54  ;  mar- 
riage, 55  ;  letters,  57,  102  ; 
Oriental  taste,  58  ;  relations 
with  Louis  Philippe,  58  ; 
political  views,  60-64,  7S>  84  ; 
"  Sybil,"  61,  97  ;  founds  The 
Press,  67  ;  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  69  ;  views  on 
Protection,  70-72  ;  "  Tan- 
cred,"  74,  79,  82  ;  "  Life  of 
Lord  Ge 


eorge  Bentinck,"  74, 
7;  policy  in  India 
political  prophecies, 


76,  80,  97  ;  policy  in  India,  75, 
5,  76, 


197  ;  private  life,  77,  92  ; 
"  playing  for  safety,"  81  ; 
attends  meetings,  81  ;  speech 
in  the  Sheldonian  Theatre,  83  ; 
tribute  to,  84  ;  foreign  policy, 
85-87,  107,  112-116  ;  attitude 
to  Queen  Victoria,  87,  101  ; 
Reform  Act  of  1867.. 90-92, 
1 20  ;  contrasted  with  Glad- 
stone, 95-97  ;  "  Coningsby," 
97  ;  Church  appointments, 
99  ;  relations  with  Lady 
Bradford  and  Lady  Chester- 


248 


INDEX 


field,  105  ;  "  Endymion,"  105 ;  ! 
Prime  Minister,  107,  146  ;  ; 
legislative  measures,  108  ;  edu- 
cation of  the  Conservative 
Party,  109  ;  zeal  for  the  great- 
ness of  England,  no  ;  definite- 
ness  of  purpose,  112-114  ; 
policy  in  the  Russo-Turkish 
crisis,  113  ;  oratory,  117  ; 
element  of  mystery,  1 1 8 
District  Railway  Company,  240 

EASTERN  question,  114 

Ebert,  Herr,  199,  200 

Eight  Hours  Bill,  161 

Elections,  General,  prediction, 
198 

Eliot,  George,  4 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  36  ;  popula- 
rity, 38 

Employers  and  employed,  new 
method,  225-227 

England,  position,  86,  1 10 ; 
policy,  1 80  ;  history,  199  ; 
government,  206  ;  guardian 
for  the  League  of  Nations, 
2ii  ;  strength,  233 

Erasmus,  212 

Esher,  Lord,  10 

Esthonia,  changes  in,  235 

Europe,  security,  182  ;  political 
map,  185,  234  ;  reorganization, 
187 

FAITH,  power  of,  168 

Firth,  Prof.,  "  Then  and  Now," 
1 88 

Fisher,  Rt.  Hon.  H.  A.  L., 
"  Political  Prophecies,"  192  ; 
optimism,  195 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  9 

Florence,  changes  in  constitu- 
tion, 231 

Fox,  Rt.  Hon.  Charles,  15  ;  at- 
tack on  Lord  North,  46  ;  popu- 
larity, 128  ;  character,  132 

Fox,  Rt.  Hon.  Henry,  119  ;  Pay- 
master, 121,  131  ;  private  and 
public  relations,  122-124  ;  pro- 


scription of  1762.. i 23  ;  cha- 
racteristics, 124,  130  ;  fortune, 
124,  129-131  ;  corruption, 
124,  130  ;  disloyalty  to  Pitt, 
125-127  ;  political  views,  128  ; 
death,  129  ;  unpopularity, 
130,  132  ;  see  Holland 

Fox,  Stephen,  129 

France,  result  of  the  Restoration, 
178  ;  policy,  180,  182  ;  sense 
of  nationality,  185  ;  history, 
199  ;  hostility  to  the  League 
of  Nations,  210  ;  guardian  for 
it,  21 1  ;  result  of  political  rest- 
lessness, 232  ;  changes  in, 235 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  196 

Frederick,  Empress,  22 

Frederick  the  Great,  196,  197  ; 
saying  of,  126 

Free  Trade  measures  of  1842,  53 

French  Revolution,  142,  144, 
198  ;  result,  232 

"  Friends  of  the  People," 
founded,  145 

GALWAY,  First  Lord  in  com- 
mand of  the  English  army, 
212  note  ;  see  Ruvigny 

Garibaldi,  85,  137 

George  II.,  King,  21,  125; 
opinion  of  H.  Fox,  130 

George  III.,  King,  8,  25,  121, 
123, 125 

George  IV.,  King,  33 

Georgian  era,  6 

Germans,  crimes,  172,  207,  220  ; 
characteristics,  200 

Germany,  Memorandum  on  the 
Eastern  question,  115  ;  policy, 
1 80  ;  need  for  conquering, 
188,  190  ;  revolution,  198  ; 
prophecy  on,  199  ;  war-cry, 
208  ;  protection  against  Bol- 
shevism, 222  ;  military  power, 
233 

Gladstone,  Mrs.,  96 

Gladstone,  Rt.  Hon.  W.  E.,  2,  4. 
41,  51  ;  policy,  33  ;  motives 


INDEX 


249 


for  entering  public  life,  52  ; 
political  views,  60  ;  Home 
Rule  policy,  71,  154  ;  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  82  ; 
contrasted  with  Disraeli,  95- 
97  ;  characteristics,  97,  104, 
162  ;  principles,  99,  103  ; 
financial  measures,  135  ;  opin- 
ion of  Lord  R.  Churchill,  157 

Glasgow,  port  of,  195 

Goderich,  Viscount,  Prime  Min- 
ister, 133 

Godley,  Sir  Arthur,  159 

Gorst,  Sir  John,  relations  with 
Lord  R.  Churchill,  160 

Greece,  114  ;  changes  in, 235 

Greville,  the  diarist,  10 

Grey,  Charles,  Second  Earl,  133  ; 
Prime  Minister,  133  ;  charac- 
teristics, 133  ;  Reform  Bill  of 
1832..  133-136  ;  policy,  144  ; 
founds  the  "  Friends  of  the 
People,"  145 

Grey,  Viscount,  1 1 1  ;  optimism, 
170 

HAGUE  Conference,  206  ;  failure 
to  prevent  war,  207,  208 

Halifax,  Lord,  142 

Harcourt,  Sir  William,  117,  155 

Hatfield,  103 

Heine,  H.,  prophecy,  197 

Henry  VIII.,  King,  7 

Henry,  Prince,  death,  22 

Herbert,  Sidney,  70 

History,  use  of,  194 

Hodges,  Frank,  tribute  to  the 
profit-sharing  scheme,  23 8  note 

Holland,  Henry  Fox,  First  Lord, 
119  ;  see  Fox 

"  Holy  Alliance,"  115 

Horner,  Francis,  189 

Houghton,  Lord,  54 

Hughenden,  77,  107 

Hume,  David,  prophecy,  197 

Huxley,  Prof.,  83 

ILCHESTER,  Earl  of, "  Henry  Fox, 


First     Lord     Holland,      His 

Family  and  Relations,"  119, 122 
Imperial  Defence,  Committee  of, 

ill 
India,  Government  of,  31  ; 

policy,  75,  88  ;    cause  of  the 

prosperity,  242 

Inge,  Dean,  prophecies,  5,  198 
Intellect,  judgments  of  the,  167- 

169 
International  and  National,  204- 

215 
Italy,  85, 87  ;  Liberation  of,  139  ; 

unity,  233  ;  changes  in,  235 

JAMES  I.,  King,  7 

Jennings,  Mr.,  160 

Jerome,  Miss,  158 

Johnson,   Dr.,   criticism   of   his 

poetry,  18 
Joseph  II.,  197 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  83 
Jugo-Slavia,  235 

KEELING,  Sergeant-Major,  202 
Kerensky,  M.,  199,  200 
Keynes,  Mr.,  219,  223 
King,  position  of  an  hereditary, 

7,  26 

Kingsley,  Charles,  4 
Kitchener,  Lord,  on  the  length 

of  the  war,  169 

LABOUCHERE,  Henry,  28  ;  advice 
to  Lord  R.  Churchill,  160 

Labour,  International  organiza- 
tion of,  206  ;  failure,  207,  208; 
interests,  237 

Labour  and  Capital,  relations 
between,  222,  225-227 

Landor,  W.  S.,  on  democracies, 

245 
Lansdowne,  Lord, foreign  policy, 

in 
League  of  Nations,  206,  209, 

224;    guardians,  211  ;    ideal, 

215 
Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  10 


250 


INDEX 


Lehzen,  Baroness,  13,  1 6 

Leopold,  King,  85 

Lewis,    Mrs.    Wyndham,    mar-  | 

riage,  55 

Liberal  Unionists,  the,  155 
Liddon,  Canon,  4 
Limerick,  port  of,  195 
Liverpool,  port  of,  195 
Lords,  House  of,  63 
Louis  XIV.,  King  of  France,  2, 

41,  in,  232 

Louis  XVI.,  King  of  France,  182 
Louis  XVIII.,  King  of  France, 

restoration,  177 
Louis    Philippe,    King    of    the 

French,    30,    55,    144,    199; 

relations    with    Disraeli,    58  ; 

dislike  of  Palmers  ton,  59 
Lowe,  Robert, attacks  on  Reform, 

46 

Luther,  Martin,  138 
Lyttelton,  Sarah,  Lady,  10 

MACAULAY,  Lord,  history  of 
England,  136 

Machlavelli,  on  democracies,  245 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  "The  New 
Republic,"  103 

Manchester  Ship  Canal,  240 

Maurice,  Rev.  F.  D.,  4 

Melbourne,  Lord,  instructions  to 
Queen  Victoria,  13,  16,  25  ; 
opinion  of  her,  15  ;  relations 
with  her,  16-^18  ;  character  of 
his  conversation,  17  ;  criticism 
of  Johnson's  poetry,  18  ;  cha- 
racteristics, 19  ;  death,  14 

Milton,  John,  pamphlet,  219 

Ministers,  optimism,  169 

Montesquieu,  C.,  prophecy,  197 

Monypenny,    William    Flavelle, 
"  The  Life  of  Benjamin  Dis- 
raeli, Earl  of  Beaconsfield,"  45, 
65 ;  introductory  dissertations,  ' 
59  ;  death,  65  ;  on  the  element  \ 
of  mystery  in  Disraeli,  118 

Morley,  Lord,  61,  68  ;  Life  of 
Gladstone,  98  ;  prophecy,  197 


NAPOLEON,  Emperor,  in  ;  des- 
potism, 184  ;  victories,  232 

Napoleon  III.,  Emperor,  232 

National  and  International,  204- 
215 

Nationality,  doctrine  of,  187, 
234  J  growth,  212 

Nations,  Society  of,  179 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  28,  123, 
125  ;  refuses  a  pension,  132 

Newman,  Cardinal,  4 

Norfolk,  Duke  of,  15 

North,  Lord,  46 

OPTIMISM  after  the  War, 2 16-228 
Optimist,  definition  of,  163  ;  mis- 
calculations,   164,    217     221 ; 
belief  in  men,  173  ;  justifica- 
tion of  faith,  175 
Over-taxation,  result,  242 

PALMERSTON,  Lord,  2,  28,30,41, 
73 »  J97  ;  character  as  Prime 
Minister,  82  ;  death,  90 

Panmure,  Lord,  28 

Peace,  Treaty  of,  233  ;  criticism 
on,  219 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  4,  15,  41  ; 
attacks  of  Disraeli,  45-47,  70  ; 
character,  47  ;  repeal  of  the 
Corn  Laws,  51  ;  motives  for 
entering  public  life,  52  ;  rela- 
tions with  Disraeli,  53  ;  Free 
Trade  measures,  53,  135  ; 
political  views,  60  ;  Prime 
Minister,  146 

Peelites,  the,  characteristics,  70 

Pelham,  Henry,  121,  131  ;  rela- 
tions with  H.  Fox,  123 

Perceval,  Spencer,  Prime  Minis- 
ter, 133 

Pessimist,  definition  of,  163  ; 
miscalculations,  165,  217,  221; 
unbelief,  171  ;  belief  in  ma- 
chines, 173 

Philip  II.,  King  of  Spain,  in 

Pitt,    Rt.    Hon.    William,   Pay- 


INDEX 


251 


master,  121,  124  ;  probity  and 
honour,  124,  131  ;  character- 
istics, 126,  140  ;  measures  of 
repression,  141,  143-145  ; 
prosecutions  for  sedition,  142  ; 
Prime  Minister,  148  ;  death, 
149  ;  policy  in  the  French 
Revolution,  177  ;  despatch  of 
1792. .183 

Pitt,  William,  127  ;  see  Chatham 

Poland,  changes  in,  235 

Political  prophecies,  192-203  ; 
unsuccessful,  196  ;  successful, 
197 

Politics,  two  forces  in,  205  ;  law 
of  continuity  in  change,  230 

Polybius,  prophecy,  197 

Pope,  Alexander,  character  of  his 
letters,  9 

Poor,  relief  of  the,  243 

Portland,  Duke  of ,  Prime  Minis- 
ter, 133 

Portugal,  struggle  for  freedom, 
184 

Press,  The,  67 

Profit-sharing  scheme,  238  note 

Prophecies,  political,  192-203 

Prophet,  an  anonymous,  200,  203 

Protection,  question  of,  70-72 

Prussia,  85 

Prussians,  characteristics,  174 

Public  Worship  Regulations  Act, 
36,  108 

Pusey,  Rev.  E.  B.,  4 

QUEENSBERRY,  Duke  of,  15 
PvEDESDALE,  Lord,  IO2 

Reform  Bill  of,  1832.. 25,  133- 
136;  of  1 867.. 89-92,  120 

Renan,  E.,  prophecy,  197 

Robespierre,  144 

Roland,  Mdme.,  196 

Roman  Empire,  42 

Rosebery,  Lord,  41,  144  ;  "Pitt," 
66  ;  Prime  Minister,  133 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  197 

Rumania,  114 

Ruskin,  John,  4 


I  Russell,     George,     opinion     of 

Disraeli,  117 
Russell,  Lord  John,  2,  28,  30,  41; 

!      despatch  on  the  Trent  affair,3 1 

;  Russia,  Memorandum  on  the 
Eastern  question,  115  ;  weak- 
ness, 181  ;  defeat  of  Turkey, 
181  ;  failure,  186  ;  revolution, 
187  ;  Bolshevist  movement, 
214,  221  ;  condition,  221  ; 
result  of  the  revolutions,  237 
Russians,  characteristics,  201 

I  Russo-Turkish  war,  112 
Ruvigny,  Marquis  de,  in  com- 
mand  of  the   English   army, 
212  note 

|  SALISBURY,  Lord,  41,  63,  161, 
197  ;  motives  for  entering 
public  life,  52  ;  on  appoint- 
ments of  High  Church  deans, 
100  ;  tribute  to  Disraeli,  no  ; 
foreign  policy,  in  ;  relations 
with  Disraeli,  112  ;  at  the  Con- 
stantinople Conference,  115  ; 
Prime  Minister,  146  ;  relations 
with  Lord  R.  Churchill,  152, 
1 60  ;  tribute  to,  153  ;  first 
meeting  with  J.  Chamberlain, 
154  ;  co-operation  of  the 
Liberal  Unionists,  155 

San  Stefano,  Treaty  of,  107 
i  Sand,  George,  224,  225 

Schleswig  question,  76,  87 
;  Sedan,  battle  of,  232 
i  Serbia,  114,  235  ;  see  Jugo-Slavia 

Shelburne,  Earl  of,  123 
i  Sheldonian  Theatre,  83 

Smith,  Rev.  Sydney,  189 

Smith,  Rt.  Hon.  W.  H.,  158 

Smythe,  George,  54 

Socialism,    international    creed, 
214 

Sophia,  Electress,  7 

Spain,  struggle  for  freedom,  184  • 
poverty,  196 

Sparta,  constitutional  continuity, 
231 


252 


INDEX 


Spencer,  Lord,  142 

Spurgeon,  Charles,  4 

Stanley,    Lord,    28  ;     relations 

with   Disraeli,    54  ;    see    also 

Derby,  Lord 
Strachey,  Lytton,  Life  of  Queen 

Victoria,   10-13,  32,,  33,  41  ; 

book  on  French  poetry,   n  ; 

"  Eminent  Victorians,"  n 
Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  Lord,  30 

TENNYSON,  Lord,  4 

"  Then  and  Now,"  177-191 

Times,  The,  editorship,  94 

Tory  Party,  121,  156 

Trent  affair,  31 

Trevelyan,  Sir  George,  Life  of 
Lord  Macaulay,  136 

Trevelyan,  George  Macaulay, 
"  Lord  Grey  of  the  Reform 
Bill,"  135,  130-144  ;  creed, 
137  ;  political  views,  140  ; 
"  Clio,  extract  from,  193 

Turf  Club,  154 

Turkey,  defeat  of,  18 1  ;  collapse, 
235 

UNITED  States,  difficulty  with, 
1 862  •  •  87  ;  guardian  for  the 
League  of  Nations,  211 

Universal  suffrage  democracy,  6 

VENICE,  constitutional  con- 
tinuity, 231 

Versailles,  Treaty  of,  234 
Victoria,  Queen,  i  ;  character  of 
her  reign,  2-5  ;  characteristics, 
6,  8,  12-14,  20-23,  27,  33,  38, 
42,  101  ;  letters  and  journals, 
9-11,  27  ;  works  on,  10-13  '> 
accession,  14, 1 6  ;  indomitable 
will,  14,  26  ;  education,  16  ; 
impressions  of  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, 17  ;  husband  and 
children,  19  ;  narrowness,  20  ; 
relations  with  her  children,  20, 
22 ;  courage,  21  ;  relations 


with  her  people,  22  ;  exercise 
of  her  functions  as  Sovereign, 
24-40  ;  tenacious  of  her  rights, 
27»  38  ;  treatment  of  her 
Ministers,  27-29,  33  ;  policy, 
28,  30,  36  r  services  to  her 
country,  29-31  ;  limitations 
of  her  power,  32-34,  36  ;  daily 
work,  35,  40  ;  Public  Worship 
Regulation  Act,  36,  108  ; 
neglect  of  her  public  position, 
37  ;  system  of  granting  hon- 
ours, 38  ;  veneration  of  her 
name,  40-44. ;  distinguished 
contemporaries,  41  ;  symbol 
of  the  British  Empire,  42  ; 
Empress  of  India,  75,  89  ; 
letters  from  Disraeli,  87,  101 
Vienna,  Congress  of,  179 
Vitzthum,  tribute  to  Disraeli,  84 

WALPOLE,  Sir  Robert,  124 
War,    European,    224 ;     result, 

1 80,  233  ;  optimism  after  the, 

216-228 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  184,  232 
Wellington,     Duke     of,      143  ; 

Prime  Minister,  133 
West,  Sir  Algernon,  142 
Whig  Party,   120  ;    creed,   138  ; 

policy,  146 

Whitley  Councils,  225 
Wilberforce,  Bishop,  92 
William  II.,  German  Emperor, 

1 88  ;  birth,  86 
William  IV.,  King,  33 
Williams,  Mrs.  Brydges,  friend- 
ship with  Disraeli,  77 
Wilson,  President,  reply  of  the 

Allies     to,     187  ;      Fourteen 

Points,  234 

Wolff,  Sir  H.  Drummond,  115 
j  Words  worth, William,  lines  from, 

176,  1 86  ;   prophecy,  197  ;  on 

the  three  virtues,  216 
Wycliffe,  John,  137 


PRINTED    BY   WILLIAM   CLOWES   AND    SONS,    LIMITED, 
LONDON   AND   BECCLES,    ENGLAND. 


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